I had the same concern while reading until I realized the same thing about the structure. Glad we can safely replicate it instead of destroying another natural resource.

Yes, I didn't read the article.

Having now read it, I was a bit concerned that they were going to be harvesting mother of pearl in some horrendous twist of "we can use less concrete! But we have to industrialise the harvesting of molluscs".

Thankfully it's the micro-pattern in polymers inspired by nature.

"Stronger and safer cement wouldn’t just be a boon for construction, but also the health of the planet, as the production of cement makes up roughly 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions."

But upping safety factors by 2 would still use less concrete than previous structures.
So could be an improvement to safety and cost.

Best case, the world uses less concrete (which I believe is a huge source of CO2)

Eh, that's just good engineering and resource usage (assuming it's not magically energy intensive). Anyone can build a bridge to not fail; it takes an engineer to make a bridge that barely doesn't fail.

Unfortunately, being capitalist dystopia, this won't make buildings safer. It will see them being made with less material.

Great question.

Best guess: When capitalists only want to do something because they can make a buck off of it. Use "Urban Mining" instead of Recycling because capitalists love to Mine, not Re-Cycle.

When did recycling become a bad word?