Sustainability has many components. In addition to avoiding CO2, the conservation of natural resources is moving more and more into the centre of corporate responsibility. As a founding member of the Concrete Sustainability Council (CSC), Holcim has been striving for years to promote sustainable business practices. All cement plants, nine production facilities for aggregates, 25 ready-mixed concrete plants of the Holcim Germany Group, and its mobile concrete truck are already CSC-certified.
In June, the CSC expanded its certification system for concrete to include the 'R-Module'. With CSC-certified concrete, additional points for the use of concrete with recycled aggregates can be earned for building certifications according to DGNB or BREEAM (more information at the CSC Website). Holcim Germany is the first concrete manufacturer in the world to have two ready-mixed concrete plants certified with the R module - the Holcim concrete plant in Kirchheim unter Teck and the Holcim concrete plant in Stuttgart-Neckarhafen.
These works were chosen very deliberately, because the topic of recycled concrete (R-concrete) has been discussed in Baden-Württemberg for some time, as more and more municipalities and cities are putting this out to tender in municipal building projects. In addition, with Heinrich Feess GmbH & Co KG in Kirchheim unter Teck, Holcim has a reliable partner in the region who has over 60 years of experience in demolition and recycling and is also a 2016 German Environment Prize winner.
In the field of R-concrete, the Deutsche Architektenblatt reports on the Rauner Campus project, a combination of the renovation and construction of a community school in Kirchheim/Teck, in which the recycled material is used as Holcim exposed concrete. The project worked well, meaning that R-concrete may catch on.
“The requirements for sustainable building are increasing all the time,” says Werner Spilles, Head of Ready-mixed Concrete at Holcim in Germany. “Recycled concrete offers the opportunity to make an important contribution to the circular economy. Holcim in Baden-Württemberg is a little ahead of the other regions – thanks to Regional Manager South, Hagen Aichele, and his team! We look forward to new exciting projects in which we use recycled aggregates and can best combine them with our climate-friendly or climate-neutral concretes."