Portugal: Cimpor will invest €155m in establishing a new research and development centre focused on sustainable construction, CO₂ reduction and digital transformation. The investment will also cover the modernisation of Kiln 7 at the producer’s Alhandra cement plant. The new centre will focus on technologies such as low-clinker cement development, carbon capture and alternative fuels, using recycled concrete and 3D printing. The building itself will incorporate calcined clay-based cement and recycled aggregates.
The new centre will create over 100 jobs and serve as a hub for collaboration with universities and startups, as well as serve as a location for conferences and workshops. The building will operate as a ‘living lab’, with real-time monitoring of its thermal and structural performance and energy consumption.
The chair of Cimpor Global Holdings, Suat Çalbiyik, said “In 2018, we operated only in Portugal and Cape Verde with around 1800 employees. Today, we are the world’s third-largest cement group… with 8000 employees in 14 countries and a production capacity of 112.5Mt/yr of cement.”
