Conference summary

The 2nd International online Conference on Construction Materials for a Sustainable Future CoMS 2020/21 was held on April 20 and 21 2021. The conference focused on the sustainable development of the construction sector, which is one of the important factors in achieving the EU’s climate change objectives.

CoMS 2020/21 conference was organized by ZAG – the Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute alongside co-organizing institutions: the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Civil Engineering, the University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Technical Science, the BAM – Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing and supported by sponsors and RILEM’s Technical Activities Committee.

CoMS conference was attended by more than 130 worldwide experts coming from 19 different, mostly European, countries. Programme was composed of six plenary and eight keynote lectures, 58 oral presentations and 16 posters. Conference Proceedings were published in two volumes,with volume one including 40 papers and volume two 20 papers .

Best papers will be selected and authors will be invited to publish their research in a special issue of the peer reviewed and open access journal Materials (ISSN 1996-1944; CODEN: MATEG9).

The conference was opened by the following speakers from the world of science and politics:

• Aleš Žnidarič, PhD, Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute, Director
• Tomaž Boh, PhD, Ministry of Education, Science and Sport, General Science Directorate, Director
• Patrik Kolar, PhD, European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA), Head of Department C (Green Research and Innovation).

CoMS 2020/21 conference featured excellent internationally recognized plenary speakers:

• John Provis, PhD, The University of Sheffield, United Kingdom
• Ueli Angst, PhD, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
• Alexander Passer, PhD, TU Graz, Austria
• Kristina Mjörnell, PhD, Research Institutes of Sweden, Sweden
• Andreas Rogge, PhD, BAM Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing, Germany
• Erik Schlangen, PhD, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands.

Programme was organized into 8 different sessions and each of them was opened by one of the plenary speakers: Karen Scrivener, PhD, Switzerland, Andreja Kutnar, PhD, Slovenia, Ana Mladenovič, PhD, Slovenia, Sabina Jordan, PhD, Slovenia, Andrej Anžlin, PhD, Slovenia, Ksenija Marc, Slovenia, Marijana Serdar, PhD, Croatia and Irina Stipanović, PhD, Croatia.

Besides the plenary and keynote lectures, oral presentations and posters, special project networking and dissemination showrooms were available, where 16 different projects were presented: CARE4CLIMATE, POCITYF, InnoCrossLam, FLOW, WOOL2LOOP, EnDurCrete, ACES, FRISSBE, RIS ALiCE, MEZeroE, ComTraForce, LIFEproETV, oWERFLOw, EURAD, Cinderela and ADRISEISMIC.

In the showrooms projects’ coordinators representatives presented their activities and had the possibility to interact with the participants.

At the panel discussion, participants discussed about the latest achievements in the field of sustainable construction and in where should our focus go in the future. The main message of the conference is that the future of buildings and our society is green, healthy and digitalized.

Participants in the panel discussion were:

• Kristina Mjörnell, PhD, Research Institutes of Sweden
• Andreja Kutnar, PhD, InnoRenew CoE & University of Primorska
• Patrik Kolar, PhD, European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency
• Friderik Knez, Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute
• Aleš Ugovšek, PhD, moderator