Amazon Invests In Innovation To Decarbonise Construction In The UK

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11 November 2026

A newly opened £40 million Amazon delivery station in Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham has become an active testbed for three emerging technologies designed to cut embodied carbon in construction.

With the built environment driving a substantial share of global emissions - and concrete remaining notoriously difficult to abate - the site unites alternative binders, low-carbon manufacturing, and materials that permanently trap carbon dioxide.

Among the innovations deployed is paving developed by Montreal-based clean tech firm CarbiCrete. Across 6,400 square metres of footpaths and parking bays, conventional cement was eliminated entirely. The mix instead repurposes industrial steel slag, cured via a process that mineralises captured CO₂ directly into the blocks. The firm reports that the Teesside installation - its first large-scale commercial rollout worldwide - has locked away 33 tonnes of atmospheric carbon.

Inside the service yard, Swedish startup Paebbl has laid a low-carbon concrete floor using Paebbl Rebond, a mineral-based binder designed to store more carbon than its manufacturing generates. The yard's concrete has been embedded with fibre-optic sensors, enabling engineers to monitor performance, load-bearing integrity, and durability against standard mixes under heavy daily freight traffic.

Local innovation is also embedded in the access roads. The site’s asphalt incorporates ACLA®, a carbon-storing aggregate engineered by Low Carbon Materials (LCM), an Earthshot Prize finalist spun out of Durham University. Manufactured 25 miles away in Seaham, the additive stores 798kg of CO₂ equivalent per tonne, verified by an independent Environmental Product Declaration¹. Because the aggregate is lighter than standard stone, it also trims haulage emissions.

The initiative forms part of Amazon's target under The Climate Pledge to reach net-zero carbon across operations by 2040. Backing for Paebbl and LCM has come via Amazon's Climate Pledge Fund and its Greentown Go Build innovation programme, which target hard-to-abate materials including steel and cement.

Beyond research and development, the Stockton-on-Tees hub is expected to create around 100 regional jobs. It forms part of the tech firm's wider £40 billion UK capital commitment slated between 2025 and 2027, following a £3 billion sustainable infrastructure spend between 2021 and 2025 that independent consultancy Frontier Economics² links to thousands of supply-chain roles.

Wider industry adoption remains the ultimate test. Construction firms often hesitate to specify unproven materials without longitudinal performance data. To address this, the facility will undergo formal Zero Carbon Certification review by the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) once 12 months of operational data has been gathered, establishing clear benchmarks for future UK commercial builds.

Dr Natasha Boulding, Chief Executive and Co-Founder of LCM, said: "The barrier has never been the science. It's whether someone will put it in a real building. A first-of-a-kind project is only first once. After that it's a precedent, and this industry runs on precedent."

Ana Luisa Vaz, VP Products at Paebbl, said: "Customer projects such as this one provide the practical evidence and confidence needed to design our first commercial plant around real applications rather than theoretical demand. They help turn carbon-storing construction from a distant possibility into something that can be deployed in buildings today."

1. Independent Environmental Product Declaration – see here.
2. Frontier Economics Analysis – see here.

For more on this story, please visit the Amazon website - How Amazon is investing in innovation to decarbonise construction in the UK

Picture: A collage of Amazon’s sustainable construction initiatives, featuring the Amazon testing facility, CarbiCrete, Low Carbon Materials and Paebbl. Credit: About Amazon UK.

Article written by Amazon Staff | Published 11 November 2026

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