From Fossil to Function: Designing Next Generation Materials for a Low Carbon Economy

The shift to a low carbon economy demands materials that minimize environmental impact while maintaining performance and scalability. This review examines sustainable alternatives across five key sectors; construction, polymers, functional materials, textiles, and electronics, and highlighting recent advances in low carbon cement, recyclable polymers, and bio based coatings. We assess trade offs such as cost, durability, supply chain risk, and lifecycle emissions. Instead of listing emerging solutions, the paper emphasizes a unified design framework focused on performance alignment, green chemistry, criticality avoidance, and end-of-life planning. Enabling tools including machine learning, autonomous labs, lifecycle informed screening, and multiscale modeling, are also reviewed for their role in accelerating sustainable materials discovery. We highlight research gaps, methodological challenges in lifecycle data, and barriers to large scale deployment, aiming to guide more integrated and transparent material innovation.