Concrete, bricks, asphalt—we encounter these materials daily without ever really giving much thought to the fact that they’re actually pumping huge amounts of CO2 into our air due to their energy-intensive creation processes.

But alternatives to concrete and brick construction aren’t super common. Mainly because concrete and bricks have engineered over centuries to be very good at their jobs. Increasingly, though, designers and scientists are experimenting with new materials that are structurally similar to concrete while being a helluva lot greener.