Amazon has entered into a commercial agreement with Brimstone, a low-carbon cement producer, to reserve volumes of its sustainable Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) from a production facility in Oakland, California. The deal follows successful testing of Brimstone’s product for use in Amazon’s construction projects.
The tests, conducted in collaboration with Amazon’s concrete consultants, assessed key properties such as workability and compressive strength based on Amazon’s slab mix designs. The results confirmed that Brimstone’s OPC met the ASTM C150 standard—the industry benchmark for conventional OPC—and performed effectively with existing construction materials used by Amazon.
“These initial results are encouraging and demonstrate the potential for Brimstone’s innovative materials to scale across our buildings portfolio and reduce the carbon footprint of concrete,” said Asad Jafry, Director of Global Energy, Sustainability & Automation at Amazon.
Following the successful trials, Amazon and Brimstone plan to conduct further testing over the next two years. The extended evaluations will focus on durability, sulfate resistance, and aggregate reactivity, among other factors, across various concrete mix designs and applications. If these tests meet expectations, Amazon is expected to adopt Brimstone’s OPC more broadly across its infrastructure, including data centres.
Brimstone’s cement uses carbon-free calcium silicate rock and magnesium compounds—materials that naturally absorb CO₂—instead of traditional limestone. The result is a product that is chemically and physically identical to standard cement but has a carbon-negative profile.
“Brimstone has developed a more efficient, economical, and sustainable process for producing industry-standard materials that can be used today,” said Cody Finke, Brimstone’s co-founder and CEO. “This allows for fast market adoption through existing testing protocols.”
Founded in 2019, Brimstone has raised over $80 million from investors including Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, and S2G Ventures.
Cement production is a significant contributor to global emissions, accounting for an estimated 7.5% of the total. With construction—particularly of energy-intensive infrastructure like data centres—relying heavily on concrete, Amazon and other large tech firms are increasingly exploring low-carbon alternatives to meet their climate goals.
