Global Cement News

UK: The Global Cement and Concrete Research Network (Innovandi) has launched a week of online workshops dedicated to lowering cement and concrete’s carbon footprint through research and development, with the participation of 30 companies and 40 scientific institutions.

Global Cement and Concrete Association cement director Claude Loréa said, “Cement is fundamentally important to our world today and will play a crucial role in building the sustainable world of tomorrow. It is therefore critical to support and accelerate the breakthrough processes and products that will improve sustainability and decrease carbon emissions. The Innovandi Kick-off Week offers a platform for leaders from across the world of cement and concrete to collaborate with academic institutions and define the cutting-edge research that will address these challenges and help us create a better future.”

Canada/US: Lehigh Cement says that it has adopted the latest North American Product Category Rules (PCR) across its entire product range.

Lehigh Hanson Canada regional cement sales and logistics vice president Shawn McMillan said, “We have made it one of our top priorities to benchmark and lower our CO₂ emissions with ambitious targets. Much like food nutrition labels highlight calorific values, our plant and product-specific environmental product declarations (EPD) communicate the environmental impact through global warming potential (GWP) for cement in a simple and easy-to-understand manner. We intend to use the added product transparency to more effectively gain adoption for our lower carbon products. We have several research projects and studies on-going to continue to optimise the carbon impacts from cement and concrete.”

US: Cemex has announced that its De Zavala and Tyler cement terminals, both in Texas, have received the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Energy Star certification for energy efficiency. The De Zavala terminal reduced its energy intensity by 53% between June 2015 and June 2020, while the Tyler terminal reduced its intensity by 39% over the same period, both exceeding their five-year targets of a 10% reduction.

France: LafargeHolcim France has said that all bagged cement will now bear a 360Score CO₂ emissions reduction rating, “to allow traders, artisans and homebuilders to know the precise carbon impact of their cement.” The rating, between ’A’ and ’D,’ corresponds to the factor of CO₂ compared to CEM-I Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC). ’A’ Class cement produces 75% – 100% less CO₂, while ’D’ class cement produces 0% – 25% less.

LafargeHolcim France chief executive officer (CEO) François Petry said, “By applying the 360Score rating scale to our bags of cements, we are continuing to implement our Lafarge 360 approach, which consists in supporting all builders to build in a more responsible manner.”

China: Huaxin Cement has announced that it burned 2.7t of seized opiates in its fuel mix at its Diwei cement plant in Chongqing. Representatives of the Chongqing Anti-Drug Committee, Public Service Bureau, Eco-Environmental Bureau and Procuratorate were in attendance. Huaxin Cement reports that the dangerous substances have been “safely disposed of.” The producer said that this is the largest single volume of drugs to have been combusted in a cement kiln. The plant previously burnt 1.22Mt of illicit substances in 2018.