“Our new ‘Made in America’ label offers our customers the confidence that their product complies with U.S. standards for quality, performance and reliability, with local-to-local service,” Jaime Hill, president of Amrize Building Materials, said in a statement.

“We are proud of the role our solutions play in building America and are committed to advancing the U.S. building industry, supporting American jobs and serving as the partner of choice for the professional builders of America,” he added.

Amrize plans to extend the label across five of its U.S. plants, starting with facilities in Ste. Genevieve, Mo.; Midlothian, Texas; Devil’s Slide, Utah; Holly Hill, S.C.; and Portland, Colo. 

The rollout coincides with upgrades that add approximately 760,000 tons of annual production, including a 660,000-ton expansion at Ste. Genevieve—North America’s largest cement plant—and $50 million in modernization work at Midlothian.

Patrick Cleary, Amrize’s senior vice president for U.S. commercial cement, said the Made in America label is meant to instill confidence and support economic growth. “We see a clear opportunity to strengthen partnerships that value verified domestic content,” he said.

The U.S. cement and concrete sector contributes more than $130 billion annually to the economy and supports about 600,000 jobs, according to the American Cement Association. National shipments reached roughly 105 million metric tons in 2024, with imports supplying about 23% of total demand—valued at nearly $16 billion.

Although the new label echoes “Buy America” sentiment, cement itself remains outside Federal Highway Administration domestic-content mandates. 

FHWA rules that took effect Oct. 1 begin phasing in U.S. manufacturing and component thresholds for manufactured products under federally funded projects, but cement is not yet covered.

“For the five flagship plants where we’re launching the label, we’ve verified the origin of all raw materials through a full supply review,” the company said in an email. 

"We see a clear opportunity to strengthen our partnerships that value verified domestic content with customers seeking to specify and promote Made in America solutions," Patrick Cleary, Amrize senior vice president of Commercial Cement for the U.S., said in an email to ENR.

"Success will be measured not only in market performance, but also by our customers’ trust," he added. 

An additional advantage of using domestically sourced materials is reducing ecological impact. Local procurement, by definition, will lower the amount of energy needed to obtain raw materials compared to non-domestic sources. The result is a reduction in net greenhouse gas emissions. 

Several states, including California and Colorado, have adopted Buy Clean standards that factor carbon emissions into material procurement. That convergence between sourcing policy and emissions disclosure could give Amrize’s label additional traction.

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Material Sourcing and Carbon Footprint

Amrize’s “local-to-local” logistics model reduces delivery distances, a growing factor in embodied-carbon accounting. That connection between local production and emissions drew cautious endorsement from Kari Yuers, chair of the American Concrete Institute’s Chemical Admixtures Committee and president of Kryton International.

“If you lower transportation distances, you naturally lower embodied carbon,” Yuers told ENR. “But it’s only one piece of the puzzle. We need parallel moves—electrification of transport, alternative-fuel kilns, 1L cements, carbon-capture pilots—to actually move the needle.”

She added that verification matters as much as intent. “Labels are valuable if they’re verifiable,” she said. “Without transparent data on embodied-carbon intensity, a domestic-content label risks becoming just another marketing claim.”

Producing cement clinker by heating limestone and clay in kilns is the most energy-intensive aspect of creating Portland cement. Clinker is the key product where the chemical reaction takes place and is responsible for the majority of the environmental emissions associated with producing cement, which is eventually used in concrete. 

Contractors and state transportation agencies can verify domestic-content claims and environmental disclosures through Federal Trade Commission labeling rules and ASTM-compliant Environmental Product Declarations. 

Such documentation is increasingly required in material procurement scoring and Buy Clean reporting frameworks from federal authorities, ACI and other standards-making bodies.

Decarbonization and Industry Outlook

The company’s investment push includes process efficiency upgrades, as well as breaking ground this year on a new fly-ash beneficiation plant in Virginia, aiming to reclaim landfilled ash as a supplementary cementitious material—a key step in offsetting clinker emissions. 

Many U.S. concrete producers currently import fly ash from overseas due to the lack of coal-fired power plants in the U.S., making procurement from Europe or coal-friendly nations necessary. That supply chain was disrupted not only during the pandemic but also during more recent shortages of the coal byproduct due to heavy demand for mission-critical facilities.

“Beneficiated fly ash and calcined clay can make a real dent in carbon, but access and permitting are limiting factors,” Yuers said. “We need regional supply solutions so contractors aren’t waiting months for alternative materials.”

Yuers added that Portland-limestone cement, known in industry standards as Type 1L, can lower CO₂ intensity by 10–15% without compromising structural performance when mix designs are properly adjusted. “They’re the fastest near-term win,” she said. “They’re proven and ready if the market demands them.”

Cement manufacturing accounts for roughly 71 million metric tons of CO₂ a year—about 4.4% of U.S. industrial greenhouse-gas output, according to EPA and Clean Air Task Force data. 

With construction activity expected to rise through 2030, producers are facing increasing pressure from owners and transportation departments to document life-cycle carbon reductions through Environmental Product Declarations.

“Domestic production and low-carbon production don’t have to be separate goals,” Yuers said. “If companies like Amrize align both, they’ll redefine what ‘Made in America’ means for the next generation of infrastructure.”

For Amrize, the label positions the company where domestic sourcing and carbon reduction goals converge.

"The label reinforces Amrize’s role as the local partner helping states, builders, and contractors source materials produced in their own communities," the company said. "It provides a clear signal to customers and public agencies that working with a labeled Amrize cement product directly supports American manufacturing, American jobs and local economic growth." 

Whether the initiative becomes a verified competitive standard—or simply savvy branding—will depend on data the industry has only begun to measure.

— Jeff Yoders contributed reporting to this story.

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Correction: This article has been updated to reflect accurate attribution to quotes by Patrick Cleary. Additionally, the Made in America label will be used at five named facilities, not across all 13 plants owned by Amrize, as previously reported.