Analysis Construction ‘Green’ cement falling short of meeting climate goals By Valentina Pasquali October 25, 2024, 1:43 PM Alamy via Reuters While the ambition is there, long-term decarbonisation of the building industry is needed to reduce the carbon footprint of cement Cement production process rethink Need for innovative alternatives Long-term climate change challenge Construction has become as much a part of the Gulf landscape as the desert. But it is also one of the major contributors to carbon dioxide emissions, a key driver of climate change. GCC governments and developers, particularly in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, are pushing to find alternatives to traditional concrete and its basic building block and biggest pollutant, cement. Pushing the construction industry toward change is no easy feat, however. That is because of resistance to change, a decentralised organisational structure, and because, while promising approaches are coming online, there is not quite a solution out there that can fix the problem now and for all. “Developers are very interested in low carbon approaches, but the developers don’t procure concrete, and the general contractors don’t procure concrete either, they have subcontractors and maybe those procure concrete,” says Ian Riley, chief executive of the World Cement Association (WCA). “And what normally happens is nobody does anything until we actually need to pour concrete and then there’s nothing available.” At the moment there is no standard definition of what “green” cement looks like, although lower-carbon alternatives to the industry’s standard, portland cement, exist. SuppliedA³&Co CEO Amr Nadar Some of them are effective, while others’ manufacturing is more energy-intensive than the material they are trying to replace, according to Amr Nader, the Dubai-based chief executive of consultancy A³&Co. Regardless, their availability is and will remain too limited for the foreseeable future, says Nader. “Replacing cement in the next 10 to 15 years is impossible: there’s no way that a new product that evolved in the last five years will mature enough,” he says. “The only solution is to decarbonise the industry itself.” To get there, Nader thinks you need three main ingredients. The first is carbon capture technology, which has potential but is not available at scale yet. Then you have to replace as much traditional cement with innovative alternatives. “In between them is the hard part, which is the reinvention of cement production processes,” Nader says. “This is what will truly get us the 70-80 percent that we require to reduce the carbon footprint of cement, stay on the 1.5C [global warming] path and achieve climate targets by 2030 and 2050.” This involves the industry becoming drastically more efficient in using energy and other resources, introducing circular mechanisms to reuse waste and ensuring its entire supply chain emits less carbon dioxide. Multiple global or regional conglomerates, such as Lafarge, Cemex, Cimat and Arabian Cement, have developed long-term decarbonisation roadmaps that encompass all of the above. Alamay via ReutersThe construction-heavy Gulf region is looking for innovation and alternatives to traditional concrete to offset its increasing carbon footprint Several companies from around the world are pushing progress on the technology front, including in the Gulf. Perhaps the largest of them is France’s Hoffman Green. The company produces cement that is free of clinker, its typical binder, and as such has a carbon footprint that it says is five times lower than standard. Hoffman officially entered the Saudi market in June. The Gulf is especially attractive because of its development push and thirst for concrete, and because it has abundant resources to produce lower-emission cements, says Rory Anderson, chief growth officer at Partanna. Partanna, a Bahamas-based company, established a chemical process to turn brine from desalination plants, natural materials known as pozzolans, industry waste and “proprietary ingredients” into an alternative to standard portland cement. The resulting binder, the company says, ultimately contributes to producing carbon-negative concrete. Partanna has active partnerships with Saudi Readymix and the Diriyah Gate Development Authority, which is using the product to erect environmentally friendly traditional mud brick walls. Ronnie ArcherPartanna CEO and co-founder Rick Fox. The company turns brine from desalination plants and industry waste into alternative to standard portland cement UAE company Green Valley Biochar turns organic hardwood waste into the charcoal and carbon-rich material typically used to enhance soil. It signed an agreement in July to supply biochar to Bton Group – the German company uses biochar in the production of what it says is net-positive concrete. Bton Group’s chief executive Thomas Demmel says the company is at work to set up 10 plants in the region in the next year, and more after that, to serve the giga-projects and other large developments. Technology from Canada-based CarbonCure enables concrete manufacturers to lower the emissions of their product by injecting it with carbon dioxide captured from industrial and petrochemical processes and then liquefied. Gulf industrial decarbonising needs ambition and urgency Concrete institute launching low carbon building code Red Sea signs ‘pioneering’ carbon-negative concrete deal Al Kifah Ready Mix & Blocks and Qanbar Ready Mix in Saudi Arabia, and Emirates Beton and Tremix in the UAE, are among the Gulf companies that have adopted CarbonCure’s technology. “Demand for lower-carbon products in the region is really being pushed through by developers, project owners and governments, and producers are being responsive to that,” says Chad Mahoney, CarbonCapture’s lead for Europe and the Middle East. “The industry is not as sophisticated in understanding the value of R&D and doing something a bit different, most concrete companies will only do something if they have to,” says Nigel Anthony, general manager of AlKifah Ready Mix and Blocks. According to the WCA’s Riley, startups in the green cement space separately struggle to meet outdated regulatory standards and offer competitive pricing. Still-developing global carbon markets also constrain their growth for the time being. “There’s lots of good ideas, there’s companies that have technologies that could scale, but there isn’t much scale anywhere,” he says.