Navigating net zero

How can the building solutions industry meet this challenge? In some ways, it is simple for the cement industry – it is all about clinker manufacturing, the core source of GHG emissions. Global industry players must:

• Avoid carbon emissions by replacing carbon-emitting clinker in concrete; or produce this clinker with lower emissions.
• Use clinker cement sparingly and efficiently; and capture the rest and use or store the carbon.

Or, more simply still: replace, reduce, be efficient, and capture – the underlying logic of the Roadmap to NetZero outlined in Table 1.

However, it is useful to group these industry solutions into three lanes: producer control, supply chain collaboration, and innovation partners.

Lane 1: Cement producer controlled actions

The industry has many known and proven solutions that are fully under its control such as replacing fossil fuels with lower-carbon fuels and replacing older technologies with more efficient, modern kilns. Both strategies yield cash savings through efficiency and profit-producing tipping fees where low-carbon fuels are produced from waste. Use of supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) can be expanded.

These make sense on their own and GHG reduction is a nice byproduct.

The challenge here is pace of change and access to capital in the global competition for investment. An ability to monetise GHG reductions (through carbon pricing, carbon markets, tax breaks, or granting programmes) will spur faster implementation for these – the most straightforward solutions in the industry.

Nonetheless, these clinker and cement actions only take the industry partway down the road – for example roughly 30% per tonne of cementitious product for the Canadian industry (see Concrete Zero report). The good news is that these steps can be done straightforwardly as the industry can ‘do it alone’ especially with the addition of supportive carbon policies.

These investments yield a ‘like for like’ cement product flowing through to decarbonised buildings – with modest cost increase for builders and little need for change in their practices.

Enjoyed what you've read so far? Read the full article and the rest of the September issue of World Cement by registering today for free!

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcement.com/special-reports/18102024/navigating-net-zero/