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It looks like Cembureau, the European Cement Association, got its own way on the proposal to amend the European Union's (EU) Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) that the European Parliament voted on last week. The system has been tightened but not enough to make the cement industry suffer, for now. Naturally, the environmentalists are outraged.

The key reform was that the carbon credits reduction rate (the linear reduction rate) will increase and the market stability reserve (MSR) will double its capacity to absorb excess allowances on the market. However, the big battle was fought over whether to include an importer inclusion scheme (or Border Adjustment Measure) or not. Lots of political 'horse-trading' took place right up to the vote on 15 February 2017 to adopt the draft proposal, with particular battles over the importer inclusion scheme. Negotiations will now continue with the Council of the European Union before the proposal returns to the European Parliament for a final vote.

Cembureau seemed pleased with the outcome. It supported the proposal principally for maintaining competitiveness and for not ‘deliberately discriminate between sectors.' It also liked the inclusion of dynamic allocation, a benchmark based on what it said was real data, a flexible reserve in relation to the allowances available for free and those designated for auctioning and an impetus towards funding carbon capture and storage. It also singled out its pleasure that an amendment for an importer inclusion scheme had not been accepted.

This last point caused a spat between Cembureau and Bruno Vanderborght, a former executive at Holcim, at the end of January 2017 in the lobbying frenzy before the vote. In robust language Vanderborght accused the European cement industry of using the ETS for negative leakage. His argument was that the free allocation of carbon credits given to the cement industry had been used to 'maximise gross margin.' Instead of spending the money on upgrading inefficient units, the industry had used its same inefficient units to increase exports of clinker to outside the EU, to places like Africa. Cembureau countered that it had been taken out of context by Vanderborght and that arguments he levelled, such as data from the Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI) suggesting that the EU has the highest share of clinker production in old, energy-intensive installations worldwide, were misleading since CSI reporting may not be as thorough outside of Europe.

Predictably, the proposal didn't please the environmental lobby, which denounced the deal as toothless. Environmental campaign group Sandbag has been on the case of the cement industry for several years, pointing out that its own research shows that cement producers have 'abused' the free allocation scheme for profit and that emissions have actually increased under the ETS so far. Its headline figure in the wake of the vote was that the cement sector was set to rake in a surplus of allowances worth Euro2.8bn by 2030.

Following the vote Sandbag took no time to point out that the ETS carbon price had sunk below Euro5/t. In its assessment, a carbon price of least Euro50/t is required to stimulate low carbon investment. However, the carbon price soon rose back up. Little impartial analysis is available on whether the amended proposal will actually deliver its aims, although a Thomson Reuters analyst did describe the outcome as one that 'significantly tightens the market balance.'

In a final twist, the lead rapporteur for the reforms to the EU ETS is a UK member of the European Parliament (MEP). Depending on how the Brexit negotiations go, the guy marshalling the amendments to the EU ETS won't be subject to its eventual implementation.

The EU ETS is slowly starting to improve through reforms such as those voted on last week but it remains very much in doubt whether it will be able to deliver solid meaningful reductions in carbon emissions. Cembureau is rightly protecting the industry it represents but at present the price of coal appears to be a better driver of measures such as increased use of alternative fuels than the ETS. The ETS has had the misfortune in operating for the last few years throughout a market depression in Europe where it has been propping up some cement producers and now it’s helping them get back on their feet as they export their products out of the continent. In a world awash with excess clinker the policy makers are eventually going to have to decide how much they want to damage industry in order to meet their environmental aims. We need cement and we need to cut carbon emissions. Someone is always going to be unhappy in this situation.

US: Vulcan Materials has elected David P Steiner to its board of directors. Steiner will serve on Vulcan's Safety, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee and the Governance Committee. Steiner most recently served as chief executive officer of Waste Management from 2004 to 2016, a North American waste management services company that covers collection, transfer, recycling and resource recovery services as well as landfill disposal. He currently serves on the board of directors of FedEx Corporation.

Vulcan also announced that Elaine L Chao has stepped down from the Board after being confirmed by the US Senate to serve as US Secretary of Transportation. Secretary Chao joined Vulcan's Board in February 2015.

US: Loren Neil Peterson, the co-founder of Vortex, has died at the age of 87. After starting working with dry bulk solids at Salina Manufacturing in the 1950s, Peterson founded Vortex with his son-in-law Lee Young in 1977. His inventions included a type of slide gate called an Orifice Gate that was patented in 1980 and which received the John C Vaalar Award by Chemical Processing Magazine judging it ‘a major contributor toward more efficient and effective operation of plants in the chemical processing industry’. His other innovations included the Wye Line Diverter, Roller Gate and Fill Pass Diverter. He was awarded his last patent for the Clear Action Gate in 1990, a year after he retired in 1989.

“Neil was great. Nobody worked harder than him. When I left Salina, I looked everywhere for the same calibre of engineer. Unfortunately for me, he was one of a kind,” said Joe Walton, former chief executive officer and president of Walton/Stout.

Japan: Ube Industries has made changes to the personnel of its cement business. Yoshiaki Ito has been appointed as General Manager of Production and Technology Division with responsibility for Material Recycle Division, Cement and Construction Material Company. Previously he was the General Manager of the Isa Cement Plant. Tadashi Matsunamni has added responsibility for the company’s Technical Development Centre to his existing roles as Senior Managing Executive Officer, Company President of Cement and Construction Materials Company and General Manager of Cement Department. He takes over this duty from Masataka Ichikawa.

US: SSI Shredding Systems has appointed Paul Breithaupt as its Director of Engineering. He will be overseeing the day-to-day engineering operations as well as working to optimise SSI’s internal processes and products.

Breithaupt has been working with an engineering consulting firm in Portland, Oregon for the past seven years. There he primarily worked on capital projects for major food manufacturers such as Nabisco. He holds a degree in Manufacturing Engineering from California Polytechnic State University.