Murphy carries out first UK structural pour of Ecocem ACT low-carbon cement

What happened

In April 2026, contractor Murphy cast a capping beam on a contiguous pile wall at the Shipley Traincare Centre in West Yorkshire using concrete made with Ecocem's ACT low-carbon cement — the first time the material has been used in permanent structural works in the UK. The mix saved 145 kgCO₂e per cubic metre compared with the benchmark CEM III/A mix it replaced.

The pour sits within the £100 million Shipley depot project, part of the Transpennine Route Upgrade (TRU) between York and Leeds, being delivered by the TRU East alliance of Network Rail, VolkerRail, Siemens and SYSTRA. The depot is rising on the site of a former scrap metal facility and, once complete, will be operated by Northern with around 100 permanent staff. Breedon supplied the ready-mixed concrete; Ecocem Global manufactured the low-carbon binder.

It was not Murphy's first use of the material — the contractor had previously placed ACT concrete at Uxbridge Moor in what was described as the largest single pour of the material in the UK at the time, but Shipley is the first application in permanent structural works, which is the threshold that matters.

The technology

Cement is one of the most carbon-intensive materials in infrastructure, and most of the emissions come from clinker, the kiln-fired ingredient at the heart of ordinary Portland cement. The industry's standard mitigation, replacing a share of cement with ground granulated blast-furnace slag as in the CEM III/A mix used as the benchmark here, is itself constrained, because slag supply is tied to blast-furnace steelmaking, which is disappearing in the UK.

Ecocem's ACT technology is a low-clinker cement designed to cut carbon further than conventional blends. The Shipley figure is a demanding comparison, since CEM III/A is already a lower-carbon mix: 145 kgCO₂e per cubic metre saved against a CEM III/A benchmark, not against plain Portland cement. The publicly reported details do not include the precise clinker content of the Shipley mix, so we do not state one.

The distinction between trial pours and permanent works is the substance of the story. Temporary works and demonstration slabs carry little consequence if a novel material underperforms; a capping beam tying together a contiguous pile wall on a £100 million rail depot is structural, permanent and inspected. Getting a new cement through the assurance process of a Network Rail programme is a harder test than any laboratory result.

Why it matters for UK & Ireland

Infrastructure clients in the UK and Ireland have set carbon targets that cannot be met with conventional concrete, and low-clinker cements are the most direct lever available — if specifiers will accept them in permanent works. Shipley provides the reference project: a named alliance, a named supplier chain of Ecocem, Breedon and Murphy, and a quantified saving on a live rail scheme. Kyle Stott, engineering manager at Murphy, described the pour as "an example of innovation utilised for the good of the engineering industry" and tied it to the firm's aim of becoming net positive by 2050.

For Ecocem, an established European cement technology firm, a first UK permanent-works reference on a Network Rail programme is the kind of precedent that shortens the next client's approval process. For the TRU, the carbon savings will accrue as further pile caps are completed, turning a one-off first into a programme-level reduction.

What to watch

Three things. First, whether the remaining pile caps at Shipley proceed in ACT concrete and what the cumulative carbon saving amounts to — the reported figures cover the rate per cubic metre, not yet a project total or pour volume.

Second, whether other TRU packages, and Network Rail schemes beyond it, specify the material now the assurance precedent exists. Third, how quickly low-clinker cements move from named-project firsts to standard options in UK and Irish specifications, as slag availability tightens and carbon budgets bite.