Sorting out the standards

There is no denying the versatility of cement. Yet with growing concerns over its impact on CO₂e emissions, the construction industry should now be looking for more eco-friendly options.

Pioneering technologies that promise to decrease the construction industry’s carbon footprint are already in progress, such as carbon capture, usage, and storage (CCUS). Whilst these future technologies are pioneering, they are still in their infancy and any benefit is unlikely to be realised for many years, and will require huge amounts of capital investment.

The alkali-activated cementitious materials (AACMs) family of cement alternatives provide a solution to the challenges the industry faces. These products represent an ultra low-carbon option for construction, and critically, they are available right now.

Slow-moving industry standards currently stand in the way of widespread AACM adoption, leaving a largely untapped potential. What can be done to change this?

Laying the environmental foundations

Tough and adaptable, concrete is a construction all-rounder that has been widely used for hundreds of years. Due to its flexibility in the building process and broad range of applications, concrete made with traditional cement has long been the go-to material for construction projects around the globe, forming the literal foundations of the built environment.

However, cement, the key active ingredient in concrete, comes at a high environmental cost, and its carbon footprint does not sit well alongside the industry’s decarbonisation goals.

Concrete’s environmental impact 

The accessibility, usability, and affordability of cement have made it a vital material for building society’s infrastructure, but cement’s environmental impact is dramatic:

• Each year, 4.5 billion t of ordinary Portland cement (OPC) is produced globally.
• On a global scale, cement manufacturing has a huge carbon footprint, responsible for around 4 – 8% of the world’s CO₂e emissions.
• To produce 1 t of OPC, approximately 2.5 t of fuel and raw materials are consumed, with almost 1.35 billion t of CO₂e annually released into the environment from OPC production.
• Next to water, concrete is the second most-consumed substance on earth.

The construction industry has set ambitious decarbonisation targets. The Mineral Products Association (MPA) aims to reduce the emissions from cement manufacturing by 16% by 2050, championing carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS), despite its commercial rollout remaining far in the distance.

In the meantime, use of AACMs and ultra low-carbon concretes can play a key part in the construction industry’s aim to achieve net zero and tackle its large carbon footprint. This goal sits alongside the UK’s ‘Build Back Greener’ initiative that seeks to decarbonise all areas of the UK economy, and its industrial decarbonisation strategy, which aims to reduce carbon emissions by at least 90% by 2050.

The industry increasingly understands it needs to act now to achieve these targets.

As Jan Theulen, Group Director of Alternative Sources at HeidelbergCement points out in Building Magazine’s 2021 article, ‘What are we going to do about concrete?’: “2050 is tomorrow.”

Cement will undoubtedly remain part of the construction mix, but eco-friendly alternatives can help support demanding construction projects while simultaneously supporting the industry’s collective global sustainability aims.

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Read the article online at: https://www.worldcement.com/special-reports/24032023/sorting-out-the-standards/