Center for Green Market Activation (GMA): Grantee Spotlight (Q3 2026)

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The Giving Green Fund is awarding a restricted grant to the Center for Green Market Activation (GMA) for its green cement & concrete and ammonia programs, which aggregate corporate demand for low-carbon materials and use it to generate offtake agreements for early-mover plants. GMA is based in the U.S., but runs global procurement programs.

GMA's work falls within our philanthropic strategies of decarbonizing cement and concrete, and decarbonizing ammonia (as discussed in our Industry sector report). Please see Giving Green's strategy and sector reports for more information, including potential risks and co-benefits, recommended sub-strategies, theory of change, funding need, and key uncertainties.

Last updated: October 2026

What Is the Center for Green Market Activation?

GMA launched in 2024 to facilitate corporate demand commitments for green industrial products, thereby helping to secure finance for innovative early-mover plants in hard-to-abate sectors. It does this by forming buyer alliances that aggregate corporate demand, selecting early-mover projects to match buyer criteria, and facilitating the purchase of environmental attribute certificates (EACs) to enable green purchasing. It has established programs for aviation, maritime shipping, and heavy-duty trucking. It has emerging programs for cement & concrete, ammonia, and chemicals.

What Are We Funding, and How Could It Help Address Climate Change?

As of June 2026, only three commercial-scale, near-zero-emissions cement plants (and 20 ammonia plants) have reached final investment decision (FID). Lack of committed demand is consistently cited as a barrier to reaching FID for early-mover industry plants. Because individual buyers are often too small to underwrite a plant alone, demand can be pooled into multi-year contracts to reach the scale needed to unlock commercial-scale plants.

In each sector, GMA takes the following steps:

1. Develops a book-and-claim framework with producers, buyers, and technical experts
2. Recruits buyers to commit to offtakes
3. Runs a competitive bidding process to select a producer to finance 
4. Negotiates contract terms before buyers and the chosen producer sign final offtake agreements 

Our grant can be used flexibly across GMA’s cement & concrete and ammonia programs:

Cement & concrete: In partnership with RMI, GMA launched the Sustainable Concrete Buyers Alliance (SCoBA) in 2025, and in 2026 the alliance issued a request for proposals for multi-year contracts covering up to 250,000 tons of low-carbon cement a year. GMA plans to use our grant to choose a winning producer for its first cycle, finalize offtake contracts, and build a digital registry for EACs. It will also start planning for its second procurement cycle. 

Ammonia: GMA launched the Green Ammonia Buyers Alliance in partnership with RMI and 3Degrees in September 2026. It plans to use our grant to fully execute its first procurement cycle, develop a book-and-claim framework for ammonia, and begin a second procurement cycle.

Why Do We Think the Center for Green Market Activation Will Use This Funding Well?

GMA’s cement program has a promising early track record. It has built a book-and-claim framework for cement with input from a 30-member working group and recruited founding members to SCoBA, including Amazon, Meta, and Prologis. The first procurement is open only to cement that cuts emissions by roughly two-thirds or more against today's industry average, so that members' money goes to deep reductions rather than marginal improvements.

We think GMA's model fills a critical gap to accelerate the commercialization of green industrial materials. It has demonstrated a track record of success in the transportation sector, with its aviation and maritime fuel alliances having successfully executed two procurement rounds each and its trucking alliance executing one round thus far. Its aviation program aggregated $500 million USD in demand, with every philanthropic dollar spent on GMA’s program leveraging $140 in corporate innovation funding. We see this funding as catalytic because, as GMA's programs mature, they begin to draw stable income from member fees and no longer need philanthropic support.

We think GMA adds significant value throughout its procurement cycles. For example, it educates buyers about book-and-claim, negotiates shared buying criteria among companies with different priorities, assesses bids and selects producers from its request for proposal (RFP), structures deals producers can use to access financing, and manages unforeseen circumstances that could block deals. We are confident in its ability to continue executing its model in the cement and ammonia sectors.

We publish grant spotlights to offer transparency to Giving Green Fund donors and resources for those interested in the impact strategies each grant supports. Giving Green believes our Top Climate Nonprofits have the greatest impact potential for large, unrestricted gifts. For several reasons, we also disburse and recommend grants to other organizations surfaced through our research process for work that we believe is at least as impactful as grants to our top recommendations.

This is a non-partisan analysis (study or research) and is provided for educational purposes.

The Center for Green Market Activation is a registered nonprofit in the U.S.

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