The building blocks of tomorrow’s infrastructure are already here. Materials makers and tech companies have developed lower-carbon concrete, recycled asphalt and smarter plastics for everyday parts like pipes and cables. They’re ready to go, so what’s holding the industry back?
Leaders from across the infrastructure supply chain at Newsweek's Pillars of Stability event during Climate Week NYC 2026 said that the toolbox is ready, but the rulebook is outdated. Innovation has turned sustainability goals into real products. Now we need to get permission to use them.
It starts with standard materials and a sprinkling of “fairy dust,” Patty Mishic O’Brien, chief growth and sustainability officer at Teknor Apex, told Newsweek. The company “takes a resin of material and adds the fairy dust to make it better for you,” she said. That “fairy dust” could be anything from UV protection to higher durability or better wires and cables in data centers.
With sustainable materials and advanced technologies, the possibilities are unbound. Teknor Apex is working with a startup partner that captures methane, a waste greenhouse gas, and turns it into a plastic-like material. Concrete is getting the same treatment, with some help from AI.
Builders want a product that is “strong, fast, sustainable, available, reliable, workable," all at once, Julius Kusuma, principal research scientist at Meta, told Newsweek. It’s a complex ask, but with AI, Meta has created a mix that is "faster, stronger, more sustainable, and you can build it using today's available ingredients," Kusuma said. It all comes back to new technology development.
AI “can accelerate innovation. And if we're all communicating and aligned, and working together, it's just going to accelerate that even more,” she added. Despite progress on the technology side, there is caution when it comes to using alternative materials at scale.
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