Concrete is an essential element of modern life, from buildings to roads and infrastructure. Unfortunately, it’s also a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.
Concrete Company leaders are taking proactive steps to reduce their environmental impact by decarbonizing their production process. This involves reducing carbon footprints, improving energy efficiency and using more sustainable raw materials.
Recycled Materials
Concrete is an incredibly versatile building material that can be employed to construct both residential and commercial structures. Not only is it highly durable, but its use in building can help reduce costs and boost energy efficiency at the same time.
However, the construction industry must adapt its practices and materials use in order to fully benefit from this transition towards a low-carbon economy. This will necessitate using new materials, renewable inputs, as well as localized and typology specific strategies.
By 2040, a 50% circular building materials sector could slash production-related greenhouse gas emissions in half. Furthermore, it would enable us to meet the growing global demand for new buildings with significantly fewer inputs.
To achieve this goal, the industry must secure cost-competitive access to end-of-life materials as quickly as possible. This poses a significant challenge, particularly given supply chain disruptions.
Energy Efficiency
Energy efficiency is becoming an increasingly critical issue for building owners and operators worldwide. As climate change continues to have a negative effect on our planet, they’re seeking ways to reduce their own carbon footprints and minimize their businesses’ impact on the planet.
The Venture Concrete Columbia industry can take a low carbon path in their growth by incorporating waste-heat recovery (WHR) technology into the production process, which captures excess heat from industrial processes to generate electric power. This solution could help offset cement production’s negative carbon emissions.
Besides using renewable and low-carbon electricity, the construction industry can also utilize a range of green materials to construct more energy-efficient structures. Concrete, for instance, boasts excellent thermal mass properties that enhance a building’s efficiency by storing and releasing energy as needed throughout the year.
Reduced Carbon Footprint
As construction moves towards renewable energy sources, architects and builders must be mindful of reducing their carbon footprints during design. Constructing buildings is the major contributor to embodied carbon emissions due to faulty materials or subpar construction techniques.
According to a study published in the Journal of Concrete Technology, several strategies are being employed to reduce carbon emissions from concrete. These include using supplementary cementitious material (SCM), recycled aggregate, and replacing the binder with a low-carbon material.
One method to reduce embodied carbon is using fly ash, a fine glass powder made of iron, silica and alumina that’s produced as an byproduct from coal-fired power stations. It can be utilized to replace sand in concrete mixes for improved durability.
Reduced Waste
Research is ongoing to investigate the feasibility of recycling waste material into concrete for sustainable structures, but unfortunately this method remains impractical due to its hazardous, corrosive, flammable, chemically reactive, incendiary nature and infectious properties.
Disposing of these waste materials can result in significant economic losses due to water and air contamination, so recycling or reusing them in the Concrete Contractor Columbia sector is more advantageous.
After analysing vast bibliometric data retrieved from Scopus, three areas of research in waste material utilization for sustainability in concrete emerged: recycled aggregate concrete, secondary cementitious materials in concrete and geopolymer concrete. These materials could contribute to sustainable construction by reducing cement demand, cutting CO2 emissions, protecting natural resources and solving waste management issues.
