A key industry association is working to keep warming to "well below" two degrees.
From concrete blocks that actually store CO2 to recycling old toilets into greener cement, TreeHugger is not short of examples of how the cement industry could tackle its colossal carbon footprint.
But how do we make these initiatives go mainstream?
Clearly, key to any large-scale transformation of one of the world's most polluting industries is getting the industry itself onboard. And according to Business Green, there are encouraging signs of just such buy in. Because the World Cement Association is launching a major push to ensure that, in keeping with the Paris Climate Accord, makers of cement and cement products—which currently account for about 5% of global emissions—do their part to keep climate change to "well below" two degrees of warming.
Exactly how they will do this remains to be seen, but encouragingly the effort doesn't seem to rely solely on any one "silver bullet" or yet-to-be-proven technological breakthrough. Instead, there are five key pillars to the effort which include transparency, optimal use of cement products, adoption of waste co-processing practices, new technologies and rewarding best practices. That said, the launch of the effort did stipulate that as much as 50% of the technology needed to meet this daunting challenge has yet to be fully developed—but it's encouraging to see a focus on both technological development and better optimization of technologies and techniques already in use today.
A key industry association is working to keep warming to "well below" two degrees.
