

2025 Nominees

Project Name
SFO Terminal 3 West
Description
We are hugely appreciative of the opportunity to nominate the San Francisco International Airport T3W project for the 2025 NRMCA Concrete Innovation award. The SFO Project utilized the ground-breaking 100% portland cement replacement produced by C-Crete for its structural footings at the Terminal 3 interim corridor, which connects the airport’s United Airlines gates to the main security areas while the terminal undergoes renovation. The concrete, which utilized aggregates from NRMCA member Martin Marietta, was mixed by the local family-owned enterprise Bauman Concrete, and placed by Turner Construction’s self-perform concrete division.
Evidence
Use of C-Crete’s 100% portland cement-free binder was unique in that it is one of the first instances of the use of innovative concrete in a real structural application on a public project. In addition to the novel ownership context in which it was poured, this project is also one of the first known public projects in the Bay to have included embodied carbon on its bid forms, further driving the local concrete market towards normalizing conversations surrounding embodied carbon and accounting for environmental impacts alongside cost during bid.
Implementation of the product would not have been possible without collaboration between supply chain members. From Turner SPO working with C-Crete to strategize on transportation and install logistics to Bauman testing and developing trail batches with supply chain partners like Martin Marietta, installing this innovative concrete was a team effort. Because of the novelty of the product, early coordination and test pours were essential to this project’s success.
Producing an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) requires 12 months of continuous production data – data that was not yet available for the C-Crete binder. However, early calculations suggest a 94% embodied carbon savings against ordinary portland cement. When adding on the carbonation potential during its use phase, the final concrete product has the potential to become carbon negative. From a performance perspective, the C-Crete mix used in the SFO project exhibited higher strength compared to a conventional portland cement mix with similar binder content; 7 and 28-day compressive strength tests showed about a 28% increase in strength. While durability tests are ongoing, C-Crete’s lab results with independent third parties such as MnDOT suggest that “using the chloride permeability test (ASTM C1202), resistivity tests (AASHTO T 250), and freeze-thaw test (ASTM C666), all collectively show that the C-Crete product is more durable than OPC concrete.” Experiences in pouring the concrete at SFO’s Interim Corridor will continue to inform further refinement of mixes on future pours.
Because of efforts like these by the project team, the project is projecting a 30% reduction in embodied carbon for its concrete mixes on the job. Lastly, with over 47M passengers visiting SFO annually, the project intends to use the high-traffic opportunity to install signage, tell our concrete story and bring conversations surrounding low-carbon materials to the spotlight.
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