Displaying items by tag: Sustainability

Togo: Cement producers in Togo have committed to reduce CO₂ emissions by 2050 by lowering the clinker factor and increasing the use of alternative fuels. At a meeting in Lomé on 30 June 2025, manufacturers set out a roadmap that includes large-scale adoption of limestone calcined clay cement (LC3) to reduce clinker content from 65% to 40%, potentially cutting emissions by up to 40% without sacrificing performance, according to the Togo First newspaper.

The strategy also involves replacing coal with agricultural or municipal waste. Industry data shows that cement production generated 0.9Mt of CO₂ in 2023, which could rise to 1.8Mt by 2050 without intervention. Manufacturers are seeking regulatory support to help deliver the roadmap, which aligns with Togo’s Paris Agreement commitments.

Sweden: SaltX has announced a partnership with Holcim to develop technology and solutions that electrify and enable the decarbonisation of the entire cement manufacturing process. As part of the partnership, Holcim is becoming a strategic shareholder in SaltX through an investment of approximately US$4m. 

The companies intend to co-develop and advance SaltX’s electrification technology for calcination, including the production of Portland cement clinker. The goal is to be the first in the world to establish a scalable plant concept for fully electrified cement facilities. The parties’ intention is for the partnership to be extensive, featuring a collaborative go-to-market and scale-up plan. The initial focus is on developing the world’s first all-electric pilot plant for emission-free cement production. This will set the foundation to establish multiple large-scale production facilities based on SaltX’s electrification technology.  

Greece: Titan Group has been named by Time Magazine as one of the most sustainable companies in the world, rising 158 positions to 150th in the annual list of 500 companies. Titan Group said that it is the highest-ranked building materials company and one of only a handful on the list. Time Magazine and data firm Statista assessed companies based on external ratings, commitments and various environmental and social Key performance indicators (KPIs) disclosed in externally-assured reports.

Leonidas Canellopoulos, Chief Innovation and Sustainability Officer at Titan Group, said "Being named one of the world’s most sustainable companies by Time for the second year in a row is a powerful endorsement of our growth strategy in action. Sustainability is woven into every decision we make – from bold innovation in new products and decarbonised processes to transparent execution.”

Norway: Heidelberg Materials CEO Dominik von Achten and Crown Prince Haakon of Norway have inaugurated the new carbon capture and storage (CCS) unit at the Brevik cement plant. The event was attended by 320 guests, inxluding Norwegian energy minister Terje Aasland. Von Achten said the producer’s ‘zero-CO₂’ cement, evoZero, is fully sold out for 2025. The Brevik CCS unit will capture 400,000t/yr of CO₂, equivalent to 50% of the plant's emissions. The first CO₂ has already been successfully captured, liquefied and temporarily stored, with injection into subsea reservoirs scheduled for August 2025. 

Von Achten said “Personally, I love the collaboration part of it because this is a masterpiece of global, national, European, in fact, global collaboration. Without the Norwegian government support we would probably not alone have a part in this project. The Norwegian government has significantly de-risked the project for us. That's why we are standing here today and celebrating this important milestone.”

He added “We can’t expect governments to finance these projects for the coming decades – it must work commercially. We have a physical product from Brevik that we will be delivering to Oslo and to other parts of Norway. We also have a virtual product, which will be like a purchase of a renewable energy contract, so that we can virtually allocate evoZero to Paris, to Berlin, to wherever it is needed.”

Von Achten said “The CO₂ concentration in our flue gas – at 20% – is much higher than in the atmosphere, so we have a huge technology and commercial advantage over direct air capture (DAC) approaches. I would say that our evoZero product brings significant commercial advantages to our customers.”

Yara International CEO Svein Tore Holsether said “There will be no green transition with red numbers.”

Energy minister Terje Aasland said Norway has been safely sequestering CO₂ in the Sleipner oil-field since 1996 and that storage is safe and permanent.

Poland/Germany: Cemex will expand its renewable energy portfolio in its Central Europe Materials division by adding new photovoltaic farms at its cement plants in Mysłowice, Warsaw, Lublin, Szczecin, Gdańsk and at the Mirowo quarry, under an agreement with EDP Energia Polska. The company currently operates five photovoltaic farms in the region, four in Germany and one in Pruszków near Warsaw. Nine new farms in Poland will take total photovoltaic capacity above 14MW. Existing installations produce 128MW/month; this will rise to 291MWh/month once the new farms become operational.

Cemex has also signed an eight-year power purchase agreement with Norwegian energy company Statkraft to supply its Polish operations with wind and photovoltaic electricity, covering 30% of Cemex Polska’s energy demand.

Spain: Molins has received permits from the Generalitat de Catalunya to begin operating an auxiliary hydrogen generation facility at its Sant Vicenç dels Horts cement plant in Barcelona.

The producer will install a hydrogen production module based on water electrolysis, using water from subway catchments. The system includes osmosis treatment to purify the water prior to splitting it into hydrogen and oxygen using renewable electricity. The hydrogen will be consumed directly as fuel in the clinker kiln, replacing part of the petcoke currently used to reduce CO₂ emissions.

Molins forecasts hydrogen consumption of 305t/yr and expects to cut CO₂ emissions by 3600t/yr. The company said the project supports its Sustainability Roadmap 2030, which targets a 20% reduction in emissions by 2030 compared to 2020.

US: Ozinga has broken ground on a 1Mt/yr alternative cement grinding plant in East Chicago, Indiana. The plant is equipped with a Gebr. Pfeiffer MVR5300-C6 vertical roller mill. It will produce ASTM C989-compliant slag cement and other blended cements. When operational in 2026, it will be the largest of its kind in North America, and avoid 700,000t/yr of CO₂ emissions from conventional cement production. Its location offers strategic rail, road and shipping access to large markets in the US and Canada.

East Chicago Mayor Anthony Copeland welcomed an anticipated 150 new jobs resulting from construction and subsequent operations at the plant.

India: During the fourth quarter of the 2025 financial year (which ended on 31 March 2025), premium products constituted 16% of Shree Cement’s sales mix, up from 12% one year previously. During the period, the company further diversified its offering with the launch of two new premium cements, Bangur Marble Portland slag cement and Extra White Portland slag cement, in Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. Both products are designed for maximum brightness and smoothness within their category of CEM-II Portland slag cements. The company says that its growing portfolio helped it to increase its full-year financial realisation per tonne by 5% year-on-year.

Business Today News has reported that managing director Neeraj Akhoury said "In the 2025 financial year, 74% of our cement output was blended, avoiding over 7.2Mt of CO₂ emissions."

Shree Cement crossed 60% consumption of energy from renewable sources in May 2025, Construction World News has reported. It has 582MW of installed renewable power capacity and is currently in the process of building a 1MW battery storage system at one of its cement plants in India.

Australia: Minister for Climate Change and Minister Chris Bowen says that the government is ‘considering’ the enactment of a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) to prevent carbon leakage from high emissions-intensity products, including cement.

The Australian Parliament committed to 43% national CO₂ emissions reduction between 2005 and 2030 in 2022, and capped emitters’ individual carbon footprints in 2023. Final advice from a government Carbon Leakage Review was due after May 2025, and was possibly complicated by on-going US climate and trade reforms under President Trump. The Australian Cement Industry Federation bemoaned a lack of action on carbon leakage in March 2025. It warned of jeopardy to both decarbonisation and 1400 jobs in the Australian cement sector.

Australia’s construction industry imported 40% of its cement used in 2024.

US: Monarch Cement and Evergy Energy Solutions have celebrated the completion of a 39-hectare solar array, with a capacity of 20MW, according to The Chanute Tribune. The facility was inaugurated with a ribbon cutting ceremony attended by representatives from both companies. It will supply up to 33% of Monarch’s Humboldt cement plant’s energy needs. Monarch Cement president Kent Webber said the project took three years to complete.

Evergy also planted native pollinator-friendly grasses and plants to boost underground biomass, improve water infiltration and offer the potential to capture CO₂. The project reduces water demand compared to conventional power generation.