At TITAN, innovation is a way of life, a culture, and at the same time a key driver of our success and growth, which is inextricably linked to our strategy. As such, innovation imbues all aspects of our operation.
Offering our customers breakthrough materials, products, and solutions
We innovate with our breakthrough materials, products, and solutions, which combine top-notch performance and sustainability and respond to the most complex needs of our customers. Today, we are transforming our product range across more than 25 countries to tackle modern construction challenges and help build resilient and more sustainable cities. TITAN Edge, our family of innovative, high-performance, low-carbon cementitious products, demonstrates how we are advancing performance in superior low-carbon construction. Find out more about our products and services here.
As part of our evolution from a cement producer into a modern industrialist that provides high-performance, sustainable building materials and solutions, we are also exploring new technologies like 3D printing. Following our successful initial deployment of 3D printing in Greece and the USA, our relevant product, under the name 3DBuilt, which allows for top performance for 3D printing applications, exhibiting unparalleled pumpability and buildability, has been added to our portfolio of novel solutions for construction.
Innovating towards a lower-carbon footprint
We also innovate to reduce our environmental footprint. IFESTOS, the pioneering carbon capture project at our plant in Kamari, Greece, is an example of a major investment with an innovative character. So is the first-of-its-kind calcined clay production line that we are developing at our plant in Roanoke, Virginia. Investments like these allow us to continuously expand our green products portfolio, aiming for this to account for at least 40 percent of our total portfolio by 2026. Find out more about our Net Zero targets, roadmap, and initiatives here.
Leading the industry’s digital transformation
And finally, we innovate digitally. Driven by our deep-rooted, entrepreneurial spirit, we were among the first companies in the global cement industry to explore and leverage the opportunities and advantages created by digital technology and AI. Today, digitalization is one of our key strategic priorities. We use Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, and robotics to transform our entire value chain, increase productivity, enhance the reliability of our assets, reduce building costs, improve energy efficiency, boost circularity, upgrade our customer experience, and make the everyday lives of our employees better. We envisage a fully digitalized, customer-oriented, and flexible operating model by 2026. Find out more about our achievements and strategy in digitalization here.
We are constantly advancing our innovation strategy, which is spearheaded by the establishment of our Innovation Hubs in the US and other locations, aiming to further promote joint value-creation processes, through partnerships with customers, scientists, and the wider start-up ecosystem.
And we are continuously increasing our investments in the innovation space, bolstering our research and development efforts and significantly scaling our Venture Capital initiative
CORPORATE VENTURE STRATEGY
Our innovation strategy is complemented by a well-rounded Venture Capital initiative. As part of this, we are planning to invest up to €40m in relevant start-ups over a three-year period, targeting ventures that can create business value and advance innovation with and for our customers and stakeholders.
Up to now, we have completed eight direct investments and participations in the following companies/startups and venture capital firms/funds, developing a collaborative platform between academia, financiers, entrepreneurs, and the corporate world to address challenges in the building materials sector and promote sustainable construction.
formulations that better address customer needs while significantly reducing material usage, CO₂ emissions, and costs, thereby promoting sustainable construction practices
our net zero strategy
Up to now, we have completed eight direct investments and participations in the following companies/startups and venture capital firms/funds, developing a collaborative platform between academia, financiers, entrepreneurs, and the corporate world to address challenges in the building materials sector and promote sustainable construction.
PARTNERSHIPS FOR THE FUTURE
The future of industry being a multidimensional project, calling for the creative synthesis of people and organizations with diverse fields of expertise, at TITAN, we are always open to synergies that can create value for all parties and drive our industry’s future. To this end, we are joining forces with leading players across di erent fields that can help us further accelerate the implementation of our strategy and amplify our positive impact.
Such synergies include the following
Ecocem
TITAN and Ecocem, a leader in low-carbon cement technologies, have entered a partnership for the development of innovative low-carbon cements in Europe. This collaboration marks a key step in our journey toward net-zero emissions and aligns with our strategic goal of expanding our innovative product portfolio. Together, we aim to co-develop and deploy a version of ACT, Ecocem’s scalable low-carbon cement technology, optimized for application by TITAN. The new low-carbon cement will be created by replacing a substantial portion of clinker with supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs). This new product can reduce the carbon footprint of cement by up to 70% while meeting materials performance targets.
thyssenkrupp Polysius
TITAN signed a Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) contract with thyssenkrupp Polysius for our large-scale carbon capture project, IFESTOS. This partnership marks a major step forward in the implementation of IFESTOS, one of the largest projects of its kind in Europe. Set to be implemented at the Kamari plant near Athens, IFESTOS aims to reduce CO2 emissions of the plant to net zero and enable the annual production of 3 million tons of zero-carbon cement. Under the agreement, thyssenkrupp Polysius will design and equip the two kiln lines of the Kamari plant with oxyfuel systems for CO2 capture. First -and second-generation oxyfuel and cryogenic capture technologies will combine to capture 98.5% of the plant’s CO₂ emissions. This approach will enable the avoidance of more than 1.9 million tons of CO₂ annually, which represents around 12% of the annual emissions of all Greek industrial installations and will make IFESTOS one of the largest carbon capture facilities in Europe
Sinoma CBMI
TITAN and Sinoma CBMI, a world leader in cement technology and engineering system integration, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to explore new business opportunities and drive technological innovations aimed at decarbonizing and digitalizing cement manufacturing. Building on our successful collaboration history, including the construction of our state-of-the-art cement plant in Albania in 2010, we are set to deepen our partnership. The MoU outlines collaboration areas such
as low-carbon fuel technologies, cooler technologies, virtual cement technology, digital spare parts warehousing, modular grinding solutions and carbon capture solutions. It also highlights research and development in data-driven digital manufacturing, logistics optimization, plant automation, waste heat recovery, smart mining technologies, and e cient grinding of clay and other supplementary cementitious materials.
Orcan Energy
TITAN and Orcan Energy, the leading cleantech company turning waste heat into clean electricity, have established an innovation partnership. This partnership brings together our expertise in cement production and decarbonization, and Orcan Energy’s proven track record in sustainable energy solutions. Together, we will explore the development and deployment of an innovative modular clean energy solution that will convert waste heat into clean and a ordable electricity. This e cient solution has the potential to accelerate project implementations and, at the same time, reduce costs.
FOSTERING A CULTURE OF INNOVATION
At TITAN, everything is about people. And we believe that everyone can innovate, as long as they have the tools, motivation and support. With that in mind, in 2023 we introduced “Ideation Challenge”, an internal ideas competition that promotes, encourages, and rewards innovation among our employees, regardless of their role, position, or level. As part of it, we encourage our teams to bring fresh ideas with value for themselves, the organization, and our customers. And we support their e ort by giving them the tools to strengthen their skills and develop new ones
The response to this initiative was impressive right from the beginning: The first challenge saw more than 220 ideas submitted. Our second Ideation Challenge saw nearly 10 percent of our people participate, covering all areas of innovation – from manufacturing, products and services to brand awareness, customer experience, workplace environment, and beyond. Ideation Challenge is another way to embrace innovation across the organization, while empowering employees to have a genuine impact