Cement industry can reach sustainability
Going green and achieving sustainability seem to be terms thrown around in many industries today, but according to Jean-Claude Roumain, the cement industry can achieve the goal of sustainability— through people, process, and product innovation.
Roumain, corporate product manager for Holcim (U.S.) Inc., a cement company, gave his argument for how the cement industry can reach sustainability in his presentation at the 2009 Minnesota Pavement Conference.
Concrete is the most widely used man-made product in the world and is second only to water as the world’s most utilized substance, Roumain said, which is why it’s crucial to make sure it is environmentally friendly. More than a ton of concrete is produced each year for every human being.
The reason for concrete’s high usage, he said, is its universal availability. Concrete is used all over the world in roads, schools, homes, and hospitals, as well as in many other buildings.
The cement industry was one of the first, in 1999, to make a sustainability commitment by pledging to reduce its carbon footprint. But sustainability considers more than just CO2 issues and climate change. It includes land and water impacts, energy use, depletion of non-renewable materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality, Roumain said.
Concrete has many sustainable attributes: for example, it’s locally derived, consumes CO2 from the atmosphere once in place, is non-toxic, and is resource efficient. On the flip side, Roumain said, the industry faces several challenges to sustainability. The concrete industry is fragmented and diverse. It has limited acceptance of new performance standards, is slow to investigate and adopt new technology, and reluctant to change. And a gap in product knowledge often exists.
To achieve sustainability, Roumain presented what he calls the “Sustainability Triple Bottom Line” of people, process, and production innovation. People—architects, engineers, contractors, and suppliers—need to be educated about sustainability and the benefits of cement and concrete. The industry also needs to recruit the “best and the brightest” to the field.
Concrete is a product but it is also a process, he continued. The industry needs to identify how people (architects, engineers, specifiers, testing agencies, batchmen, ready mix truck drivers, contractors, and finishers) facilitate or hinder the process to achieve durable and cost-effective concrete.
And most important, Roumain said, the industry must be receptive to innovation. To remain competitive, the industry must continually improve the delivery, quality, ease of placement, and sustainability of concrete. Different strategies and tactics will be needed to accelerate the acceptance of new technologies.
His presentation concluded with a look at future trends in the industry, citing specific examples in cement manufacturing techniques. LTAP — Holly Miller, LTAP intern