World sustainable development concerns finding new solutions for mitigation of waste accumulation on landfills and global warming increase. New clean technologies, which can reuse pollutant materials and sequestrate industrial waste and greenhouse gases, are potential solutions to mitigate global environmental threats. The feasibility of developing cement-free steel slag-based construction materials activated by carbonation was reviewed in this study, by analysing different steel slag, its chemical composition and carbonation reaction. The influence of carbonation conditions by controlling parameters such as humidity, carbon dioxide concentration, partial pressure, compacting pressure, slag fineness, temperature and carbonation duration was also reviewed. Good compressive strength and carbon dioxide uptake results demonstrated that slag-based materials activated by carbonation are potential for replacing precast Portland cement-based materials, they are also an environmentally friendly solution against Global Warming. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.