Displaying items by tag: CO2

Cemex last week. HeidelbergCement and LafargeHolcim this week. China yesterday. One can’t seem to move for major building materials companies (or their owners) issuing carbon neutral strategies at the moment. This week HeidelbergCement first launched its ‘Beyond 2020’ plan, a mixture of financial, portfolio and sustainability goals. Then, LafargeHolcim said that it had signed a pledge with Science-Based Targets (SBT) towards meeting intermediate targets by 2030. Last night, President Xi Jinping told the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in New York that China was aiming to hit peak emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060.

The timing of these various sustainability goals are directly or indirectly linked to Climate Week NYC, a notable annual event on the climate change calendar that is taking place at the moment. So it’s a good time for large-scale industrial CO₂ emitters, like building material producers, to have something positive to say.

China’s announcement steals the limelight given that the country produces around half of the world’s cement and holds a higher share of clinker production capacity. Western media has pointed out the geopolitical implications of Xi’s statement that was delivered shortly after a speech by US president Donald Trump, a notable climate change sceptic. Xi’s speech didn’t contain any details so it may simply have been an attempt to demonstrate global leadership. Yet if the Chinese government makes a go of it, the effect could be profound. Data from the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research (CICERO) shows that the Chinese cement industry emitted an estimated 782Mt CO₂ in 2018 compared to 1.50Gt CO₂ from the cement industry globally and 37.1Gt CO₂ from all human-related sources. In other words, the Chinese cement industry was responsible for 2% of all CO₂ emissions in 2018. And this industry is mostly owned by a government that has just publicly declared a carbon neutral target.

In some ways the other announcements, by the western-based multinational building material companies, are even more radical since these producers are subject to market forces. These companies don’t have to do this. They also contain more specifics than Xi’s words so far.

HeidelbergCement says it has brought forward its CO₂ emissions target for 2030 of 525kg CO₂/t (specific net CO₂ emissions per tonne of cementitious material) to 2025. That’s a 30% decrease from 752kg CO₂/t in 1990. Its new goal for 2030 is below 500kg CO₂/t. The main emission reduction methods it outlines include: increased use of alternative raw materials and fuels; increased use of secondary cementitious materials to reduce the clinker factor of cement; investment in plant efficiency and CO₂ reduction at the plant level; and increased share of low-carbon concrete products.

Chart 1: HeidelbergCement’s path to net carbon zero concrete: Source: Leading the way to carbon neutrality, HeidelbergCement.

Chart 1 above outlines HeidelbergCement’s thinking post-2030 with further reductions to CO₂ emissions mainly achieved through circular economy methods and different carbon capture techniques. Two points to hold in mind here. One: note the current uncertainty about which route will provide the biggest share of the reduction. Two: this chart considers concrete, not cement.

LafargeHolcim’s announcement was that it has joined Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) ‘Business Ambition for 1.5°C.’ It says that by doing so it has become the first global building materials company to sign the pledge with intermediate targets for 2030, validated by SBTi. This is slightly confusing given that other building materials companies have had different dealings with the SBT as it has worked towards its current scheme. Earlier this month, for example, we reported that Taiwan Cement had started an SBT project in 2019 and had some targets approved by the SBTi in June 2020. Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC) said it was joining SBTi at the start of 2020 and HeidelbergCement reported its SBTi approved targets in mid-2019. Finally, India-based Dalmia Cement is also on the SBTi ‘Business Ambition for 1.5°C’ list but it is a stretch to describe it as a ‘global’ company.

The core of LafargeHolcim’s statement is a further reduced target for CO₂ intensity in cement of 475kg CO₂/t by 2030. So far it’s decreased its CO₂ intensity by around 23% to 516 kg CO₂/t in 2019 from ~730kg CO₂/t in 1990. There’s less looking ahead after 2030 compared to HeidelbergCement but the measures outlined until then include: more use of low-carbon and carbon-neutral products; increased use of alternative raw materials and fuels; doubling waste-derived fuels in production to reach 37%; greater use of calcined clay and developing novel cements with new binders; and operating the company’s first net zero CO₂ cement production facility.

Many of the various networks and initiatives across the climate action community came together in June 2020 as part of the UN backed ‘Race To Zero Campaign,’ an attempt to align the disparate leading net zero initiatives ahead of the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP), due to take place in November 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland. This swirl of different net zero schemes also partly explains the confusion over the different organisations backing sustainability targets that companies can sign up to. So it’s a good thing to see closer collaboration here.

More cynical readers will have latched on to president Xi’s opportunity to show up President Trump in the climate change action stakes. They may also prefer news stories about activist investors prompting change at shareholder-owned companies as they increase their portfolios or stories like Morgan Stanley’s announcement this week that it has a new commitment to reach net-zero financed emissions by 2050. If the investment bank actually means it and other financiers follow suit then the fiscal incentives for net zero draw closer and the rest should follow. Moneys talks… and hopefully CO₂ stays buried in the ground.

For sustainability comparisons among the top global cement producers see the October 2020 issue of Global Cement Magazine

Norway: The Norwegian government has introduced a bill to parliament to allow funding for industrial scale implementation of HeidelbergCement’s carbon capture and storage (CCS) project at its 1.2Mt/yr Brevik plant in Porsgrunn, Telemark. If enacted, the legislation will provide for the majority of required funding.

HeidelbergCement chair Dominik von Achten, “We are very pleased with the proposal of the Norwegian government. This allows us to continue the pioneering work that we started together with our partners in Brevik. The CCS project in Norway is an important cornerstone in our climate strategy. It will enable us to significantly reduce otherwise unavoidable greenhouse gas emissions related to the cement production process.”

Germany: HeidelbergCement has presented a new business strategy, involving an accelerated climate action plan, called Beyond 2020. Under the Strategy, the company will aim to reduce its specific carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions by 10% to 525kg/t of cement by 2025 from 585kg/t in 2019. Its financial targets over the period are “a significant increase in earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) margin by 300 basis points and return on invested capital (ROIC) to clearly above 8%. The group says that it will target a leverage ratio between 1.5 and 2 times its result from current operations in 2020.

Chief executive officer (CEO) Dominik von Achten said, “We see climate change and digitalisation as the two central challenges of the future for society and for our company. As one of the world's leading building materials producers, we have the ambition and the innovative strength to actively shape this change in a pioneering role. At the same time, we see further optimisation potential in our plants and processes. Ecology and economy are not contradictory. Our new medium-term targets for 2025 illustrate this claim.”

Mexico: Cemex subsidiary Cemex Ventures has signed an agreement with US-based carbon capture and storage (CCS) specialist Carbon Clean for the development of a CCS solution for under US$30/t of carbon dioxide (CO₂) captured. Cemex cement plants will host the products during pilot testing. Cemex Ventures head Gonzalo Galindo said, “The ambitious target of making carbon capture technology accessible and more efficient would be an unprecedented achievement for the cement sector, opening a door of opportunities for further developments.”

US: LafargeHolcim says that Department of Energy institution National Energy Technology Laboratory has awarded US$1.5m of federal funding to the company’s CO₂MENT Colorado project. The project aims to capture 2.0Mt/yr of carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the company’s 1.9Mt/yr Portland cement plant in Florence, Colorado for sequestration underground by Occidental.

The group said, “With the successful completion of the initial scoping study in June 2020 and confirmation of Department Of Energy funding, the partnership has committed to the next project phase.”

Taiwan: Taiwan Cement has been awarded the first product carbon footprint label by the local Environmental Protection Administration (EPA). It follows its completion of the structure of product category rules (PCR) in early August 2020 and inspection by the EPA. TCC's products will be marked with carbon footprint labels from the fourth quarter of 2020. The Taiwan-based cement producer has also announced support for the Global Cement and Concrete Association’s (GCCA) 2050 Climate Ambition plan.

TCC started its Science-Based Target project in 2019 and says it became the first cement company in the Greater China region to complete target setting and was approved by Science-Based Target initiatives (SBTi) in June 2020. Following the science-based methods promoted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from the United Nations, TCC set a target to reduce carbon emissions by 11% in 2025, using 2016 emissions as the base. TCC completed carbon footprint certification for the most popular cement products, Portland Type I cement and Ready-Mixed Concrete 3000psi, in July 2020.

It’s back to work for many in Europe this week following the summer break and so too for the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) with the release of its 2050 Climate Ambition mission statement. Talk about setting the bar high for the rest of us struggling to remember how to log into our computers! The short version is that the association aspires to deliver society with carbon neutral concrete by 2050. The actual detail will be published in the second half of 2021.

What it does say is that, “detailed actions and milestones” will be set out in the forthcoming roadmap. This will include, “working across the built environment value chain to deliver the vision of carbon neutral concrete in a circular economy, whole life context.” This focus on concrete and end-product life-cycles looks likely to be the wriggle room cement and building materials producers need to actually meet the goal. To put it another way, as the press release helpfully reminds us, things that people need are made out of concrete. So, until a viable alternative to clinker turns up, the cost in CO₂ emissions needs to be spread as far and wide as possible. At the same time everyone needs to be continually told how much they need cementitious products: don’t think of the CO₂ released to build your new house. Rather: think of the CO₂ saved annually by living in a well-constructed dwelling, as opposed to the alternatives, and consider what happens to the concrete once the structure is demolished.

A few ideas of what strategies the roadmap may use to reach its target are revealed. This is fairly standard current thinking including: cutting direct energy-related emissions; increasing co-processing; increased renewable electricity usage; reducing process emissions through new technologies and deployment of carbon capture at scale; reducing the content of both clinker in cement and cement in concrete; more efficient use of concrete in construction; reprocessing concrete from construction and demolition waste to produce recycled aggregates; and quantifying and enhancing the level of CO₂ uptake of concrete through recarbonation in a circular economy, whole life context.

It’s early days yet, with the roadmap not due for at least a year, but deploying carbon capture methods at scale will be expensive and difficult. Whatever target the GCCA sets here will be keenly observed, especially so given that the association is a global concern. So far carbon capture in the cement industry has generally been linked to regions with market or legislative encouragement. How, for example, would a producer in a country with low environmental restrictions react to its peers trying to get it to make cement production more expensive? The rest of the points seems more tangible at the moment but will require lots of work to realise. They are also interlinked and this reinforces the need for someone to continually remind society about the life cycle of concrete. Taking concrete recycling into the mainstream is great but the world has to be told that it is happening.

This last point brings us to the perceived success of the GCCA’s ambitions: will a successfully realised strategy to make carbon neutral concrete by 2050 be enough to make environmental activists like Greta Thunberg happy? Probably not. Pure environmentalists seem unlikely to accept whole lifecycle thinking while limestone decomposition in kilns continues without capture or cessation. Even if the cement and concrete industries hit the target they will have to shake off the taint that the achievement was at least partly down to sneaky carbon accounting. Suddenly saying that concrete buildings have been sucking up CO₂ all along and that the industry is now, say, 20% closer to its carbon neutral target may feel like cheating to some observers. Step forward a global association to say otherwise. The need for industry associations making the case for the sector’s aspirations seems more essential than ever.

UK: The Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) has published its 2050 Climate Ambition, a joint industry commitment to net-zero carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions by 2050. The association’s 40 members have committed to, “eliminating direct energy-related emissions and maximizing the co-processing of waste from other industries, reducing and eliminating indirect energy emissions through renewable electricity sources, reducing process emissions through new technologies and deployment of carbon capture at scale, reducing the content of both clinker in cement and cement in concrete, as well as more efficient use of concrete in buildings and infrastructure, reprocessing concrete from construction and demolition waste to produce recycled aggregates to be used in concrete manufacturing and quantifying and enhancing the level of CO₂ uptake of concrete through re-carbonation and enhanced re-carbonation in a circular economy, whole-life context.”

President Albert Manifold said, “The 2050 Climate Ambition represents our industry’s commitment to further reducing emissions and ensuring that the vital product we provide can be delivered on a carbon-neutral basis by 2050. There is a significant challenge involved in doing so and achieving alignment across our industry on a sustainable way forward is an important first step. We cannot however succeed alone and in launching our ambition statement we are also highlighting the need for our industry to work collaboratively with other stakeholders in support of our ambition for a more sustainable future.”

Japan: A proposal by Mitsubishi Group on researching CO₂ injection into concrete has been approved for a grant from the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation (NEDO). This joint project between Mitsubishi Group, Kajima Corporation, and Chugoku Electric Power aims to improve the existing technology so that it can be applied to the reinforced and cast-in-place concretes used in building construction. At present the group said that current carbon-recycling techniques are mainly used for unreinforced concretes, such as concrete blocks.

Mitsubishi Group has already been involved in the development of concrete projects that take advantage of carbon-recycling, including a zero-emission concrete called CO₂-SUICOM. It added that carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) technologies, including carbon-recycling, are an excellent opportunity for the company to use its strengths between industries that both emit and use CO₂.

China: China Tianrui Group has reported gross CO₂ emissions per tonne of cement of 910kg/t in 2019 in its latest sustainability report. Nitrogen oxide and particulate matter emissions were 7862t and 1380t, year-on-year decreases of 13% and 4% respectively. Its water consumption intensity decreased by 42% year-on-year to 1.12Mm3.

The group operates 20 clinker production lines and 59 cement grinding production lines. Its production capacity of clinker and cement was 28.4Mt tonnes and 56.7Mt respectively in 2019. Its plants are based in Henan, Liaoning, Anhui and Tianjin, with Henan and Liaoning accounting for the largest proportion.