Resilience by Design: How Innovation in Materials Strengthens Industrial Development

For centuries, construction has relied on a familiar formula: concrete for strength, steel for scale. Together, they built the industrial age—and they still dominate it. But as global demand for logistics, digital and energy infrastructure surges, so does the carbon footprint of the materials that make it all possible.

Now, developers and engineers are asking a new question: what if the future of building isn’t about new designs, but new ingredients? Rethinking concrete and steel isn’t just an environmental imperative—it’s a business one.

Building Better Starts with the Mix

Concrete is the most widely used building material on the planet—and one of the hardest to decarbonize. The challenge lies in cement, the powder that holds everything together. It’s incredibly carbon intensive to produce, making up about 10% of a typical concrete mix but responsible for nearly 90% of concrete’s emissions.

That makes concrete the single largest source of embodied carbon in industrial construction—and one of the clearest opportunities for impact.

As a founding member of the Sustainable Concrete Buyer’s Alliance, along with Amazon, Meta and other leading organizations, we’re working to accelerate the adoption of low-carbon concrete across global construction.

We’ve set our own development standards requiring a minimum of 15% reduction in embodied carbon from concrete used in new projects. Many of our developments are already surpassing those benchmarks.

Take Nexus, a redevelopment project in San Leandro, California. We reused 60% of the existing structure and integrated low-carbon concrete and mass timber—an engineered wood material made by layering pieces of lumber to create strong, low-carbon structural panels and beams— cutting embodied carbon by 45%. Nexus is also the first industrial building in Northern California to achieve LEED Platinum certification, designed for rooftop solar and equipped to handle charging for more than 100 electric vehicles.

In Nashville, our SouthPark 8 project cut concrete-related emissions by 50%, without adding costs. And in Brazil, the Dutra RJ II facility used a concrete mix that replaces part of the cement with recycled industrial byproducts, reducing emissions by 75% while costing less than traditional concrete.

We’re applying the same approach to energy infrastructure. At a battery storage project in Texas, we piloted a next-generation concrete blend from CEMEX that cuts emissions by up to 40% while maintaining strength and durability.

Across the Americas alone, Prologis has now used low-carbon concrete in more than 35 projects, often achieving cost parity—or better.

Beyond Concrete: Timber Takes on Steel

Steel, which accounts for roughly 7% of global emissions, represents another major frontier for materials innovation.

At our Evergreen development in Toronto, completed earlier this year, we swapped structural steel for mass timber, cutting 1,163 metric tons of carbon—the equivalent of removing 240 gas-powered cars from the road for a year.

Mass timber is more sustainable and resilient, offering natural insulation and biophilic benefits, and it’s increasingly cost-competitive, making it a viable alternative for modern industrial design.

The Business Case for Low-Carbon Building Materials

According to the Prologis-Harris Poll 2026 Supply Chain Outlook Report, resilience has become the top priority for executives making capital investments. Low-carbon materials help deliver that resilience—reducing long-term risk, aligning with customer sustainability goals and future-proofing assets against shifting regulations and investor expectations.

Every ton of carbon saved, every new material tested and every project that proves sustainability can coexist with efficiency moves us closer to a new standard for industrial development—one that’s cleaner, smarter and built to last.