VIEWPOINT
SETTING STANDARDS TO BUILD A BETTER FUTURE
Miranda Clegg, UK sustainability manager, Cemex, explains the importance of revised regulations and industry standards to drive the circular economy and accelerate the critical race to decarbonisation.
SOME IMPORTANT NEW industry regulations have been introduced this year, some of which have been a long time in the making but are now critical for the circular economy and to accelerate our collective decarbonisation journey. To reach the goal of a net-zero built environment by 2050, a critical move for the concrete and cement industry is the eagerly awaited revision to BS 8500, later in 2023.
As the most resilient and
ubiquitous building material on the planet, there is no doubt that concrete will continue to play a vital role in our built environment, forming the backbone of our future-state building schemes and infrastructure. However, with that also comes great responsibility. As an industry we will be accountable to a new set of stringent standards, which will demand new ways of developing and improving our practice and products in our quest for net-zero and beyond.
Revision to the BS for Concrete BS 8500 Later this year, the UK concrete industry will publish a new version of the British Standard for Concrete BS 8500, which will work even harder to move the industry forward in hot pursuit of decarbonisation. The incoming revision to the British Standard for concrete, BS 8500, will allow the expanded use of a new generation of lower-carbon cements. A key strategy for reducing concrete’s embodied carbon
involves replacing a proportion of cement content or clinker with limestone and other industrial by-products, using up materials that might otherwise go to waste. Cement clinker is a material produced in making Portland cement.
The introduction of such an approach is one of many small steps that will take us to net-zero, along with the increased effort to reduce the embodied carbon within the clinker and increase the use of alternative fuels.
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www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net June 2023
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