Environmental + Sustainability
By Kristin Dispenza, Advancing Organizational Excellence Address Cement-Related Carbon During Design to Achieve Net Zero Cement has historically been so far upstream in a building’s supply chain that designers, engineers, and building owners ignored the details of its production. But changes in the industry are leading designers to take a cradle-to-cradle perspective. To say there has been an increase in the pace of product innovation is an understatement. While innovations offer welcome solutions to existing problems, they also require a change in the approach to project delivery. With so many construction materials offering new formulations and new benefits, early collaboration between suppliers and designers is an important way of bridging knowledge gaps and ensuring that products are being optimized, contributing maximum benefits to project outcome. “In some ways, this is breaking the culture,” said J. Ignacio Cariaga, Commercial Sustainability Director, Northwest Region, Heidelberg Materials North America. “Owners and designers have always been somewhat removed from materials and suppliers. But it’s time to go beyond seeing cement and other building materials as a commodity and see them as a solution to removing embodied carbon in the built environment. It’s a more holistic approach.” When it comes to the production of cement and concrete, many innovations center on improving sustainability. Several factors have combined to bring sustainability to the forefront of design and
The CCUS project currently planned for Heidelberg Materials North America in Edmonton, Canada, is expected to result in the world’s first full-scale implementation of CCUS at a cement plant. (image courtesy Heidelberg Materials North America)
construction. Investors and their financial partners have become increasingly focused on a company’s performance in sustainability, which is a key factor not only in its public perception but in its overall success. Conversations around Scope 3 emissions (in which emissions not produced by a given company are nevertheless considered part of that company’s responsibility) are also informing organizations’ decisions. This has driven the goal for many organizations to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions in their built structures—that is, to balance the amount of project-associated CO2 released into the atmosphere by removing an equivalent amount. World governments are taking the lead in pursuing net zero, with more than 140 countries having stated their intention of reaching net zero and many of them setting a deadline of 2050. Some efforts focus on government operations and some on changing regulations and codifying carbon reduction goals into local building codes. Many members of the private sector, too, are setting goals to reach net zero. “On the west coast, big tech companies are leading the way pursuing net zero projects,” said Cariaga. The net zero approach is inherently performance-based. With its focus on outcomes rather than prescriptive solutions, it allows owners, engineers and designers the flexibility to try new approaches and systems, many of which work in concert to achieve optimal energy
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csengineermag.com
September 2023
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