Displaying items by tag: Sustainability

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.”

India: Sustainable roofing specialist Visaka Industries has acquired a 20-year patent for production of ATUM, a roofing system consisting of cement boards with integrated solar panels. The company says that the product, which has been in development since 2016, is both insulative and capable of generating up to 28W/m2 of power.

Honduras: Cementos Argos subsidiary Argos Honduras has announced the launch of ECO Multipurpose, a 40% reduced-CO₂ general use cement produced with energy from the company’s 8.5MW solar power plant at its 1.0Mt/yr integrated Piedras Azules cement plant in Comayagua, Comayagua Department. The product is “the first environmentally-friendly cement in Honduras,” according to the cement producer.

General director Gustavo Uribe said, “With this project we are leading the industry in the country and sowing the seeds of the future for construction in Honduras, which will gradually evolve towards the adoption of the global trend of sustainable construction. At Argos, we continually work on creating products and developing projects with a positive impact on the environment and society. As a company, we assume a commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals, prioritising climate change especially, and this product brings us closer to fulfilling that commitment.”

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.

Sri Lanka: Tokyo Cement has supported its partner the Sri Lanka Navy in completing an underwater statue park. The Sunday Observer newspaper has reported that the 1200m² park in Trincomalee Bay, Eastern Province, lies at a depth of 18m and unfolds a historical storyline. Tokyo Cement supplied its Tokyo Super blended hydraulic fly ash cement to the project.

Project leader Piyal De Silva said, “Our Coral Conservation Programme (CCP) partner Tokyo Cement will carry out monitoring and maintenance activities and will provide material and technical support to set up a coral nursery for replanting corals within the Underwater Marine Sanctuary (UMS). The marine park will gradually become the home to coral colonies native to the Trincomalee Bay area. With the corals, it will attract young fish, which will ultimately lead to the formation of fish communities.” Tokyo Cement has been involved in coral reef restoration around Sri Lanka since 2010.

US: Switzerland-based LafargeHolcim has announced the start of sales via its local subsidiaries of its ECOPact range of 30 - 100% reduced CO₂ concretes. Chief executive officer (CEO) Jan Jenisch said, “I am proud to introduce ECOPact, the industry’s broadest range of green concrete for high-performing, sustainable and circular construction.”

The company says that, where regulatory conditions allow, ECOPact products integrate upcycled construction and demolition materials, further closing the resource loop. ECOPact concretes will enter the Canadian, Latin American and UK markets in mid-late 2020. “With the roll-out of this Green Concrete, we are accelerating the transition to more sustainable building materials for greener construction,” added Jenisch.

Mexico: Cement has announced the launch of a range of carbon neutral concretes called Vertua. By offsetting, Cemex has eliminated Vertua’s remaining carbon footprint following a 70% reduction in embodied emissions compared to Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) through use of a geopolymer cement mixture. The concretes will become available on different markets globally in 2020 and 2021.

Mexico: Cemex says that it is involved in a working group “focussed on the application of FastCarb aggregates to concrete production” as part of its efforts towards net-zero CO₂ concrete production. FastCarb, administrated by the US-based International Research and Exchanges Board, is a project aimed at the production of aggregates from recycled concrete containing trapped carbon dioxide (CO₂) requisitioned from industrial exhaust streams.

Cemex said, “After completing the first phase of the experimental approach at the laboratory level with promising preliminary results, the project is now entering the second phase seeking to tackle the industrial approach. In this industrial approach phase, Cemex was recently assigned to evaluate the physical and mechanical properties of the carbonated recycled concrete aggregates when used in ready-mix concrete in the laboratory facilities at the Cemex France National Technical Centre.”

China: The Tibet Autonomous Region Department of Economics and Information has awarded Huaxin Cement subsidiary Huaxin Tibet’s Shigatse Company Tibet Company cement plants with regional Green Factory status. The plants are among eight businesses across the autonomous region selected for their dedication to green development. The company says that it attaches “great importance to the protection of plateau ecology, the scientific development of mineral resources and the promotion of mine reclamation and greening.”

The Tibet Company circulates used cooling water from cement production into irrigation systems for mine reclamation. The Shigatse Company “strengthened the greening of mines and plant areas according to local conditions, and insisted on special environmental protection training for front-line employees and middle-level leaders,” improving environmental awareness across its operations, according to Huaxin Tibet.