Cement and Concrete Industries Contribution to Climate Change Mitigation

The Cement Industry is continuously trying to find ways to reduce its environmental foot print through development of a comprehensive strategy for reducing emissions and energy use. Another way the Cement Industry can assist with climate change mitigation is to encourage the use of concrete based products in Canada’s Infrastructure. This paper gives a brief overview on the Canadian Cement and Concrete Industry and how cement is made. In addition, a brief introduction is provided on Canada’s Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI) which identifies an action plan addressing performance related to six key issues. The main focus of the paper is to identifying the Cement Industry’s climate change mitigation initiatives and several concrete based applications that help mitigate climate change. Cement based initiatives focus on use of alternate and renewable fuels, Portland limestone cement and use of supplementary cementing materials. Discussions on concrete based initiatives focus on concrete pavements, concrete as a potential CO2 sink, high performance concrete for bridges, and energy efficiency of concrete buildings. Details are provided on research showing the advantages of concrete such as the updated Athena study looking at pavement structures’ energy use and global warming potential, NRC’s truck fuel usage studies and research on concrete as a CO2 sink. Other topics such as optimized concrete mixes and ultra high strength concrete are also discussed. An example of the potential fuel savings and associated CO2, NOx and SO2 reductions when operating on concrete pavement is also provided.