IN Brief:
- Edgemere 2.0 uses evoZero cement linked to captured and permanently stored carbon.
- The tile has a declared cradle-to-gate footprint of 1.86kg CO2e per square metre.
- Existing dimensions and fixing methods allow adoption without changing roofing practice.
Marley has introduced a lower-carbon version of its Edgemere concrete roof tile using Heidelberg Materials’ evoZero cement, bringing carbon capture-linked material into a mainstream UK roofing product.
The Edgemere 2.0 interlocking tile has a declared cradle-to-gate global warming potential of 1.86kg of carbon dioxide equivalent per square metre. It carries a Green Guide A+ rating and BES 6001 Excellent certification, while retaining the dimensions, fixing arrangements, and installation method of the existing Edgemere range.
By preserving the established product format, Marley has avoided introducing a new laying method, accessory system, or roof design. Contractors and housebuilders can therefore adopt the tile without altering battens, fixings, pitches, or routine installation practices.
The cement is supplied through Heidelberg Materials’ evoZero offer, which connects the product with carbon captured and permanently stored through the company’s Brevik facility in Norway. Designed to capture approximately half of the plant’s carbon dioxide emissions, the installation is expected to prevent around 400,000 tonnes from entering the atmosphere each year.
Rather than transporting cement directly from Brevik to UK tile production, the system transfers the verified emissions reduction to locally sourced cement through an environmental attribute certificate and chain-of-custody process. The arrangement is intended to retain order-level traceability while avoiding additional transport emissions associated with importing the physical material.
Certificate-based attribution allows limited early carbon capture capacity to reach products in markets beyond the immediate cement plant. It also places a greater burden on documentation because specifiers, developers, and carbon assessors need to understand how the saving has been calculated, allocated, and protected from double counting.
Environmental product declarations, procurement records, and project carbon models will need to apply compatible boundaries if the claimed reduction is to be represented accurately. A cradle-to-gate figure covers the production stage but does not account for transport to site, installation, maintenance, replacement, or end-of-life treatment.
Although roof tiles form only one part of a building’s embodied-carbon profile, their use across volume housebuilding gives small per-unit reductions considerable cumulative value. A development of several hundred homes requires a large and repeatable quantity of roof coverings, making established products an efficient route for introducing lower-carbon material at scale.
Concrete roofing manufacturers are pursuing several approaches to reducing emissions. Graphene-enhanced roof tile trials are examining whether stronger material performance can reduce cement demand, while other programmes are investigating alternative binders, recycled content, curing processes, and renewable energy within factories.
Those routes address different parts of the same footprint. Carbon capture tackles emissions generated during cement manufacture, mix optimisation reduces the amount of conventional clinker required, efficient geometry lowers the material used in each unit, and cleaner factory power reduces production emissions beyond the cement itself.
Heidelberg Materials is also developing a carbon capture project at Padeswood in north Wales. Designed to capture up to 95% of the plant’s carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to around 800,000 tonnes annually, the facility is expected to become operational in 2029.
Domestic capture capacity could eventually change the relationship between certificate-backed products and materials produced directly from carbon-captured cement within Britain. Until then, transparent accounting will be needed to maintain confidence that attributed savings are genuine, additional, and consistently recorded.
For roofing contractors, continuity of installation removes a common barrier to product adoption. New materials can slow output where operatives need different cutting, fixing, handling, or detailing methods, and unfamiliar systems may introduce questions over warranties or compatibility with existing components.
Edgemere 2.0 instead retains the practical characteristics of a product already used across residential projects. That compatibility should allow housebuilders to compare it with conventional alternatives without adding substantial labour, redesign, or training costs.
Price, availability, and merchant coverage will still determine how widely the tile is specified. Volume housebuilders rely on standard product schedules and predictable regional supply, while contractors need replacement units and accessories to remain available throughout long, phased programmes.
Lower-carbon specifications can also be vulnerable to value engineering where project environmental commitments are expressed only as broad aspirations. Embodied-carbon targets tied to measurable product data provide a firmer basis for retaining the selected material through procurement.
By linking carbon capture with a familiar roofing system, Marley has placed an emerging cement technology within an established construction process. Adoption can proceed without changing the work carried out on the roof, while the more substantial change occurs upstream in cement production, verification, and procurement.
