- Written by Robert McCaffrey, Editorial Director, Global Cement Magazine
I’ve just return from a big exhibition called Ecobuild, which was all about the latest building materials and methods which inevitably focuses on low-CO2, low embodied energy and low energy-in-use. It was an interesting day out and I was fascinated to see some of the latest trends on display, not all of which were expected.
- Written by Robert McCaffrey Editorial Director, Global Cement Magazine
The British Prime Minister David Cameron has returned from Brussels to metaphorically declare that he has done a deal with the continental powers, echoing Neville Chamberlain’s infamous ‘I hold in my hand a piece of paper,’ speech after meeting Mr Hitler in 1938. In his turn, Mr Cameron claims to have wrested important concessions from the current rulers of Europe. The difference between 1938-9 and now being that the deal will be put to the test of the referendum ballot box instead of by being tested by opposing armies. The British people, including the restive Scots (themselves arch-Europeans and sometimes seemingly half-French), will now vote on 23 June on whether to remain in the EU or to leave.
- Written by Robert McCaffrey, Editorial Director, Global Cement Magazine
I was at an industry dinner the other day and was chatting to a senior figure who happens to be male. He happened to mention something that happened to him recently that might have lessons for us all. He said to one of his female colleagues, in a meeting with a number of other colleagues, that he considered that she was wearing a pretty skirt, in words close to ‘That’s a pretty skirt you’re wearing.’
- Written by Amy Saunders, Deputy Editor, Global Cement Magazine
World leaders, environmentalists and journalists everywhere have been celebrating extra hard in recent days. December 2015 saw two weeks of negotiations at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 21) in Paris. At the end of the event, the final agreement, a mix of mandatory and voluntary statements that apply to almost 200 countries, were agreed. These included:
- Written by Robert McCaffrey Editorial Director, Global Cement Magazine
Those of you with a good memory will recall the havoc of the Asian Crisis of 1997-1998. Over-borrowed Asian countries were forced to devalue their currencies compared to the dollar, following a bubble originating in property development and inflated asset prices, stoked by relatively cheap dollar-denominated borrowing. Over-capacity in many industries, built on the back of over-enthusiastic production expansion in the expectation of spectacular future growth, combined with a collapse in demand to calamitously unbalance markets: Building materials were especially badly-hit, with some materials taking a decade or more to grow back to a situation of supply-demand balance. Only towards the end of the 2000s were some Asian markets seriously thinking about new production facilities - after their break-neck expansion of the 1990s.
