Breedon has appointed current chief financial officer James Brotherton as its next CEO from 1 January 2027, succeeding Rob Wood after a 12-year tenure with the construction materials group. Brotherton has been CFO since 2021 and co-developed Breedon’s “expand and improve” strategy, which underpinned its expansion into the US market and transfer to the London Stock Exchange’s main market. Wood, who became CEO in 2021, will step down from the board at end-2026 but remain an employee to support the leadership transition until September 2027.

Saint-Gobain’s Chryso and Ecocem have launched a combined low‑carbon system pairing Ecocem ACT cement, which cuts cement emissions by up to 70%, with Chryso’s new superplasticiser EnviroMix 3150 ACT, formulated for this binder chemistry. The admixture–cement combination enables concrete mix designs achieving over 50% carbon footprint reduction, meeting GWR5 and above, while maintaining high flowability, low viscosity at low water–cement ratios, and workability retention beyond 90 minutes without segregation. On the former John Lewis HQ refurbishment in London, around 1,300 m³ of C20/25 and C30/37 ACT concrete is being pumped using EnviroMix 3150 ACT to validate performance under site conditions.

Texas startup Hertha Metals has raised $133.65 million in Series A funding, including $65 million from the US government’s IBAS programme, to build its Hertha Chalyx plant targeting 10,000 tonnes per year of steel-grade and magnet-grade high-purity iron. The facility will deploy the FLEXHERS process—a single continuous hydrogen/natural-gas reduction reactor coupled with electric arc furnace technology—claiming 25% lower production costs than blast furnaces and emissions cuts of 50% (natural gas) to up to 98% (hydrogen). Chalyx, alongside the existing 360 t/y Pi100 pilot in Conroe, aims to create a fully domestic feedstock source for NdFeB magnet and defence manufacturers.