New dam safety regulations

A start to solving our poor record on low carbon cement replacement

Swiss based building industry giant Holcim plans to import and distribute lower carbon cement replacement products from a new Low Carbon Cement Replacement Facility currently under construction in Auckland

The initiative was started well before the New Zealand government released an Emissions Reduction Plan in mid-May this year.

Holcim New Zealand was quick to show support for the government plans to pilot the end of industrial allocation within the cement industry, in favour of transparent pricing of carbon combined with a border adjustment mechanism.

“New Zealand is an exciting market. Construction has gone from strength to strength despite the challenges of the pandemic. And the New Zealand construction industry understands the importance of decarbonisation,” says CEO for Australia and New Zealand George Agriogiannis. Concrete is the most-commonly used building material in the world and a key component is cement, which has high embodied carbon due to its manufacturing process.

Currently, every year around 1.6 million tonnes of traditional cement is used in New Zealand, equivalent to approximately 1.3 million tonnes of CO2. By replacing cement with a product which has lower embodied carbon, but similar properties, construction-related embodied carbon can be significantly reduced.

“Unfortunately, New Zealand's concrete industry is coming off a low base. Due to a lack of access historically to low carbon cement alternatives, New Zealand's carbon intensity in ready mix is high relative to its peers,” says Executive General Manager, New Zealand Kevin Larcombe.

“In similar markets like Australia and the UK, replacement of normal cements with low carbon cement replacements averages 26 percent. In New Zealand it is more like two percent”

Holcim is working with the construction industry with the aim to achieve 25 percent replacement by 2025.

“At 25 percent replacement, we estimate embodied carbon in the New Zealand construction industry will reduce by around 300,000 tonnes per annum - equivalent to taking well over 100,000 petrol cars off the road each year,” says Agriogiannis.

For Holcim in our part of the world, this involves the use of local and Australian fly ash and ground granulated blast furnace slag from Japan. “We will be offering blended low carbon cements, consistent with our global EcoPlanet range as well as Supplementary Cementitious Materials such as Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag, recycled from by-products of the iron making process,” says Larcombe.

“Every part of the construction industry has been challenged by the supply chain disruptions induced by the global pandemic. Crucially, Holcim has been able to leverage off its global capability to not only ensure Holcim's usual