Cemex Presents: Albedo's Impact on Urban Climate: Insights from MIT's Concrete Sustainability Hub and Real-World Applications

Urban pavements represent a high-impact opportunity to reduce heat and carbon emissions through thoughtful material selection. Albedo, the ability of a surface to reflect solar radiation, directly influences both local temperatures and global climate outcomes. Higher-albedo materials, like concrete, can mitigate the urban heat island (UHI) effect and reduce radiative forcing (RF).

This session, Cemex and MIT’s Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSHub), will explore cutting-edge research on pavement albedo and climate, along with real-world applications that bring the data to life. A featured case study from Cemex and Caltrans highlights how replacing a dark asphalt parking lot with a reflective, lower-carbon concrete pavement at the Caltrans Headquarters in Sacramento led to a 17°F surface temperature reduction and helped offset nearly half the pavement’s embodied global warming potential (GWP).

Together, we’ll explore how reflective concrete pavements can be a scalable, durable, and cost-effective climate solution supporting safer, more livable urban spaces while reducing environmental impact.