For regions that don't have to worry about a frost line helical screw piles and mass timber are game-changing building capabilities to construct concrete free. It's even possible to build carbon negative thanks to the timber locked in the building. And it's way faster since you don't spend months preparing a site and building forms.

Even frost line regions could dramatically cut their concrete usage if they just focused on protecting the water lines. You would lose a basement, but those are expensive per sq ft anyway. Just go up another floor for less total costs.

Local building codes will get in the way since building inspectors tend to reject things they haven't seen before (like mass timber frame) and way too many places have incredibly strict height restrictions.

It is incredible to watch helical screw piles go in. A friend needed 60+ posts installed for a big fence. Would have been days of digging or augering post holes down 4 ft for the frost line and then mixing hundreds of bags of cement and filling the holes with concrete. Instead a contractor with a small tracked machine that fit through a standard gate drove every pile in under an hour.