Sustainable building material shortlisted for THE Award

The Times Higher Education Awards are widely considered the Oscars of UK higher education. This year’s awards, which attracted hundreds of entries across 19 categories, showcased talent, innovation and commitment across all aspects of university life.

The winner will be announced on 28 November at a ceremony at the International Convention Centre (ICC) in Birmingham.

Sugarcrete® was developed by the University’s Sustainability Research Institute and School of Architecture, Computing and Engineering with one aim: to support countries such as India to replace 1.5 billion coal-fired bricks with a cheaper, carbon-neutral non-polluting alternative. Sugarcrete® is a knowledge dissemination model developed as ‘open source’, providing know-how for rural communities, with options for project development consultancy bespoke to industrial and NGO partners. 

The University’s first partnership in 2023 was with Chemical Systems Technologies in India. Teams developed cost-effective hydraulic presses to supply brick manufacturing capabilities to rural communities, developing a pilot school building which was completed this year.

The University currently has over twenty signatory partners across the world and is developing a range of Sugarcrete® applications ranging from entrepreneurs requiring block manufacturing to NGOs such as Besafe in Cabo Verde creating alternatives to the environmentally catastrophic dredging of sand for concrete. 

Sugarcrete® is also being used locally, most recently to build seating, planters and birdhouses for a new community garden in North Woolwich, London. This project was a collaboration between UEL students, local school students and the London Borough of Newham.

Sugarcrete® has already won several awards, including the Built by Nature Prize 2024 and the Climate Positive Awards’ circular economy section. It has also been nominated for the Earthshot Prize 2024, Green Gown Awards 2024, RISE, and the material innovation category of the Dezeen Sustainability Awards. 

Alan Chandler, Co-Director of the SRI, said, “A big part of Sugarcrete® is the creation of a material that delivers both technical and social sustainability, where ethical procurement leads to ethical outcomes. After three centuries of increasingly extractive production, our built environment has to shift into a new, circular economy where we manage waste streams to create new spaces of inhabitation.” 

Armor Gutierrez, Senior Lecturer in Architecture, said, “Sugarcrete® can address challenges experienced by sugarcane-producing countries. Local communities in the global south are encouraged to use carbon-intensive materials in their building projects, often presenting poor thermal efficiency, acoustic performance, seismic shock or flood resistance. By marrying agricultural bio-waste with local mineral binders and geometry innovation, Sugarcrete® provides an alternative to address their context-specific requirements.”

The University of East London has embedded sustainability across its infrastructure, curriculum, research and projects, with priorities that align with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. The University has reduced its CO2 emissions more than any other modern university in London, with a goal of net zero carbon campuses by 2030, and is committed to creating sustainable communities, fighting climate change, reducing inequalities and transforming health and sustainable wellbeing.

Some of these efforts will be on display at the British Science Festival, which the University is hosting from 11-15 September. The Festival, which is free to attend, is the highlight of a months-long programme produced by the University marking a ‘Year of Science’. This has been a celebration of science as something which can be accessible to all people, as well as an exploration of how technology and AI impact all lives, all careers and all communities, and how, together, we can create a greener, healthier and more inclusive world.