Displaying items by tag: World Cement Association
EU: The World Cement Association (WCA) has lent its voice to cross-industry support for the roll-out of the European Union's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). The mechanism taxes carbon-intensive imports, including cement, in order to prevent carbon leakage under the Emissions Trading Scheme. It first entered force on 1 October 2023, and will conclude its transitional period on 31 December 2025. Through its involvement, the WCA aims to inform and facilitate understanding of CBAM's reporting requirements, emission calculation methodologies and the workings of the CBAM Transitional Registry. WCA members and other stakeholders can access up-to-date CBAM information via a dedicated page on the association’s website.
WCA chief executive officer Ian Riley said "I'm pleased to announce our commitment to supporting our members in addressing the challenges and opportunities of this crucial initiative. The WCA is committed to supporting solutions that promote environmental responsibility and sustainability within the cement industry. We aim to work closely with our members and other stakeholders to navigate the challenges and opportunities presented by the CBAM regulation, ultimately contributing to a greener and more resilient global economy."
World Cement Association calls on cement industry to promote low-carbon development through enhanced connectivity and communication
03 January 2024UK: The World Cement Association (WCA) marked the achievement of an ‘historic’ global consensus for decarbonisation at the COP28 climate change conference in the UAE in December 2023 with a new call to global cement producers and suppliers. The association called on all participants in the industry to help promote developments in reduced-CO2 cement production through enhanced connectivity and communication. It said that technologies like alternative raw materials and alternative fuels (AF), efficiency-enhancing process changes and carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) are widely applied, but unequally, applied in the global cement industry.
Regarding the disparity between different markets, the WCA said “This imbalance underscores the critical need for more research and development funding in emerging markets, where there is real demand for this kind of support as a crucial enabler of progress.” It added “We will join hands with our members and stakeholders to advance the low-carbon and sustainable development of the industry and contribute to building a clean, safe and beautiful world.”
World Cement Association welcomes Industrial Deep Decarbonisation Initiative’s low-CO2 cement procurement commitments
14 December 2023UAE/UK: The World Cement Association has endorsed new commitments agreed upon by Industrial Deep Decarbonisation Initiative (IDDI) member countries Canada, Germany, the UK and the US at the COP28 climate conference. The commitments include the development of time-bound low CO2 cement procurement plans. The WCA says that IDDI members’ collective leverage of national purchasing power will help to accelerate the decarbonisation of construction globally.
CEO Ian Riley said “The WCA has always emphasised the need for immediate and collaborative action between government and industry to make carbon-negative concrete a reality at scale. Creating demand for low-emission materials is essential for decarbonisation. Now is the moment to work together to make necessary progress this decade.”
UK: The World Cement Association (WCA) has welcomed the introduction of the revised BS 8500 standard, which allows for a wider range of Portland limestone cement (PLC) and ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) combinations in concrete. WCA chief executive officer Ian Riley, however, described the revision as ‘not breaking new ground but catching up.’ He called on the UK and other jurisdictions to begin enacting performance-based standards.
Riley said “It is good to see BSI making this change to concrete standards, however, this is still a very modest step forward. Firstly, ground limestone has been used successfully as a cement component in many markets for decades. Secondly, in order to produce concrete with the lowest embodied carbon and the highest circularity, we need to move away from standards that require particular recipes.”
Wei Rushan appointed president of the World Cement Association
01 November 2023UK: The World Cement Association (WCA) has appointed Wei Rushan as its president. He succeeds founding president Song Zhiping in the post.
Wei has been the president and executive director of CNBM since late 2022, having had a range of senior roles within CNBM Group over the last 15 years. He obtained a doctoral degree in political economy from the School of Economics of Renmin University of China in 2007. Wei also serves as president of China Building Materials Engineering Construction Association.
UAE: The director of the World Cement Association (WCA), Ali Emir Adiguzel, told listeners at the association’s 6th Annual Conference in Dubai that the world has ‘enough cement for the next 25 years.’ Adiguzel addressed the issue of overcapacity by noting a ‘substantial’ drop in demand and pointing out that high input costs had led the sector to raise its prices, by as much as 15% in Europe. He also said that the primary challenge facing the cement industry was “meeting stringent emission targets and embracing carbon capture technologies.”
Adiguzel added "Despite our achievements, there is more work to be done in the years to come. To reach our net zero goal by 2050, we must significantly reduce carbon emissions. The technologies and mechanisms for this endeavour appear available, though currently minuscule and not economically fully feasible. Regulatory frameworks must evolve to minimise costs for end customers. Collaboration between the private and public sectors is imperative to facilitate carbon reduction."
Indonesia: The UK-based World Cement Association (WCA) has announced the inclusion of the Indonesian Cement and Concrete Institute (ISBI) as an affiliate member. The ISBI has over 20 years’ experience in providing engineering training and consulting services to the cement sector and related industries in Indonesia.
WCA chief executive officer Ian Riley said "The WCA is further expanding its involvement with industry players operating in emerging economies, particularly in Indonesia which is one of the world’s largest cement markets.”
World: Bulgaria-based consultancy firm OneStone Consulting has joined the World Cement Association (WCA) as an associate member. OneStone Consulting provides comprehensive market reporting, strategic advisory and sustainability consulting services for the cement and building material industries.
OneStone Consulting managing director Joe Harder said “We’re very pleased to be joining WCA and look forward to sharing our extensive experience and research methodologies in order to help enhance technical and economical efficiency within organisations, as well as learning from other industry stakeholders across WCA’s network."
WCA chief executive officer Ian Riley said “OneStone Consulting’s wide ranging expertise will be valuable to WCA’s members as they meet the challenges brought about by the multiple global crises. OneStone’s expertise in market intelligence, strategic consulting and sustainability aligns with WCA’s mission to drive sustainable development in the cement industry."
Temporary board members appointed at Oman Cement
12 April 2023Oman: Oman Cement has appointed Xu Gang, Chen Qian, Ian Riley and Li Yeqing as temporary board members following its acquisition by China-based Huaxin Cement. The new personnel will remain in place until the company’s next ordinary general meeting. Former chair Rashid Sultan Al Hashmi and board members Mohammed Sulaiman Al Salmi, Mohammed Abdullah Al Harthi and Sami Abdullah Al Sinani have also resigned.
Li Yeqing is the chief executive officer (CEO), secretary of the party committee and senior engineer at Huaxin Group. He holds a bachelor degree in engineering, a master’s degree in engineering and a Ph.D in business administration. He joined Huaxin Cement in 1987. He also works as the vice chair of the China Building Materials Federation and China Cement Association, and chair of the Hubei Building Materials Federation. He previously held the post of executive vice chair of the Sixth Council of China Building Materials Federation.
Xu Gang is the vice president of the Huaxin Cement. He has worked in various management roles for cement companies such as safety engineer and technical manager. He has also worked as a director for Lafarge and Huaxin Cement. Xu Gang holds a master’s degree in business administration (MBA) from Tsinghua University, a bachelor’s degree in safety engineering from the China University of Geosciences and a bachelor's degree in financial management from the Huazhong University of Science and Technology.
Ian Riley is the head of the World Cement Association. Prior to this, he held various positions such as an executive director of Tianqiao International (Shanghai) Consulting Company, the president of Asilinko Information Technology (Shanghai), the general manager of SIP (Shanghai), Information Director and the assistant and the vice president to the Xeroc. He also served as the head of Holcim Group's China region. Riley holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in engineering from the University of Cambridge.
Chen Qian is the vice president and chief financial officer (CFO) of Huaxin Group. Previously he held positions in various financial positions including senior auditor, senior consultant and CFO for several companies. Chan Qian is a Chinese Certified Public Accountant and a fellow member of the Chartered Global Management Accountant. He holds a bachelor's degree in world economics from Fudan University and a master's degree in business administration from the Anderson School of Business in the US.
Update on cement industry advocacy, February 2023
22 February 2023The Portland Cement Association (PCA) has launched a new website to promote the US cement industry’s progress towards net zero. It’s always interesting to see the different approaches the various associations around the world take in promoting the sector especially in response to mainstream media coverage that has often taken a negative view of cement and concrete. As sustainability thinking has permeated into society the stereotype that cement production releases vast amounts of CO2 for little gain has been a hard one to shake off. Readers can draw their own conclusions on how well the PCA site works by looking at cementprogress.com.
Make no mistake, the PCA’s new website is a marketing tool designed to bring out some of the points of its carbon zero roadmap to a wider audience. Yet it is refreshing to see a national association website attempting to tell the general public what progress the cement industry is making towards reducing its CO2 emissions. Unfortunately, it then avoids giving out any data that presents an overview of how it’s all actually going. This may come with time though as the roadmap was only released in late 2021. One number that does stick out on the site is that the PCA uses the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) carbon emissions data to calculate that the manufacture of cement accounts for 1.25% of total CO2 emissions in the US. This is lower than the global figure of 7% that is often used from the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research - Oslo’s (CICERO) research. Both figures appear to be broadly correct based on the available data.
The real story here is to showcase the wide range of actions the PCA is taking as part of its roadmap. In the cement section, for example, the PCA is rightly able to demonstrate its recent work driving the transition to Portland Limestone Cement (PLC) production in the US. This then leads on to the usual beats of resilient construction, carbonation and a ’whole society’ approach to tackling the decarbonisation of the cement industry with suggestions that everybody from citizens to contractors to policy makers can do.
The wider context is that the big challenge facing cement advocacy groups today is that sustainability is a global issue but that such groups have generally been national or regional for most of their history. The national or regional cement associations have existed for decades serving the local needs of their members. This started to change in 1999 when the Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI) was created with its global approach to sustainability for the sector with its data gathering and technology roadmaps. In the 2010s global media attention started to focus on the large share of CO2 emissions the cement industry was emitting as, coincidentally, China became the world’s largest cement producer. Then in the late 2010s the two global cement associations - the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) and the World Cement Association (WCA) - emerged with the GCCA taking over what the CSI did previously.
One problem that the PCA and the other associations face is that decarbonising the cement and concrete sectors is hard to do, expensive and will take decades. Until, or if, carbon capture is suddenly conjured up at scale, all of this work is inherently seen as boring by much of the media compared to, say. young photogenic environmental activists supergluing themselves to roads. One way to fight back against this is to show progress font-and-centre and to try and take back control of the narrative. This appears to be what the PCA is trying out in a more direct fashion than usual. The risk though is that any action by an industry-backed lobbying group to show off the work it is doing will simply be labelled as greenwashing, whether it’s fair or not. Of course, some environmentalists indulge in their own reverse version of this (industry staining?) to make the powerful but simple argument about the necessity of cutting CO2 emissions but without taking fully into account or underplaying the scale of the societal changes necessary to do so. Either way, the cement industry and its advocates have an uphill struggle on their hands in the years ahead. This may require fresh thinking about how to win over hearts and minds.
The March 2023 issue of Global Cement Magazine includes an interview with Claude Lorea from the Global Cement & Concrete Association (GCCA)