CEMBUREAU highlights cement industry’s potential on path to low carbon economy

The cement industry’s role in building a low carbon economy future has been outlined in a Roadmap from CEMBUREAU, the European Cement Association. The project lays out five parallel routes that can each contribute to lowering emissions related to cement and concrete production. The first three routes cover resource efficiency, energy efficiency and carbon sequestration and reuse. The remaining two routes, defined as product efficiency and downstream, look at how cement and concrete can contribute to a low carbon society. Though the first three routes have been quantified, the savings from these last two routes were not included as they do not relate directly to cement manufacturing.

“The European Cement Industry is committed to reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions,” said Peter Hoddinott, CEMBUREAU President. “Much has already been achieved, and we can build on this experience to achieve a reduction of 32% in carbon emissions compared with 1990 levels. Beyond that, with breakthrough technologies and a supportive policy framework, a potential reduction of up to 80% by 2050 can be envisaged. In addition, innovations in concrete construction can allow the industry to contribute more. For example, intelligently-conceived modern concrete buildings can use three quarters less energy over their whole life. With over 35% of Europe's energy consumed in buildings, how concrete is used can have profound benefits for where we live and work tomorrow.”

Koen Coppenholle, CEMBUREAU Chief Executive, added: “The cement and concrete industry can play a crucial role in helping Europe achieve its goals, since its vision sits well with European requirements and strategic objectives on employment, innovation, education, social inclusion and climate and energy.” However, he emphasised that the cement industry needs the support of its partners to achieve this vision: “We are part of Europe’s industrial landscape and depend on other industries, governments and players to be able to deliver on specific parts of this roadmap.”

The Roadmap has focused on what the sector sees as potentially contributing towards achieving a low carbon economy and the input and opinion of key external stakeholders has been of invaluable use during the project. CEMBUREAU welcomes feedback. The full roadmap is available here.

Adapted from press release by Katherine Guenioui