Green concrete for maritime applications

ECOncrete provides green concrete for maritime applications, bio-enhancing concrete additives, science based designed forms and form liners. These solutions reduce the ecological footprint of ports, marinas, coastal protections schemes and urban waterfront projects, while adding to their structural integrity.

Half of the world’s population concentrates along coastlines, and with an accelerated coastal development this inflicts severe stress on natural ecosystems is inevitable. If we combine this with the fact that coastal and urban environments world-wide require development, retrofitting and intensive maintenance that often pollutes the natural environment because the chemical composition, design, and low surface complexity of most such infrastructure are not surrogates to natural substrates, therefore “gray” infrastructure are typically dominated by nuisance and invasive species.

Among other products, ECOncrete develops:

  • They build modular concrete armor units used for construction of coastal and marine defenses such as breakwaters and dykes, providing robust protection from hydrodynamic forces
  • Tide Pool Armor that creates well-defined local ecosystems that mimic natural rock pools, increasing biodiversity while providing robust protection from hydrodynamic forces.
  • ECOncrete’s articulated concrete mattresses are designed to provide shoreline and bank stabilization, erosion control and protection to offshore pipelines and cables.
  • ECO Seawalls enhance marine biodiversity, add valuable habitat and create an aesthetic alternative to standard “gray” seawalls. The technology can be integrated into urban and industrial waterfronts and load-bearing seawalls without compromising operational capacity.
  • ECOncrete’s ecological Piles & Jackets substitute standard concrete piles and encasements for aging concrete, steel, timber infrastructures. They provide the necessary constructive support and protection while creating new and productive marine habitats.

The products are tailored to encourage growth of flora and fauna, which provide bioprotection: oysters and corals can physically protect the concrete from scour and chloride attacks, or plant canopies that are capable of buffering temperature changes and humidity level on the concrete surface.

The company was one of TIME’s 100 Best Inventions of 2019 in the Design category and participates in the ‘United Nations Global Compact’ the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative.

The ECOncrete admixtures comply with ASTM and EN standards typically required for coastal and marine constructions and they tailor their mix designs according to the specific needs of each project and product.