Limiting the damage

World Environment Day on 5th June was ushered in with a greater gusto in India than ever before. In keeping with the theme of this year’s celebration, ‘Only One Earth,’ the Government of India has also taken substantial steps such as banning single use plastic among others.

Considering the urgency with which the cement sector is moving towards decarbonisation, here are some facts that are propelling cement players to take immediate action:

• The steel and cement sectors would see a three-to-four-fold increase in demand and a near tripling of sectoral CO2 emissions by 2050, making the industrial sector the single largest source of CO2 emissions in India, as per an estimate by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).
• More than half of all CO2 emissions since 1751 have been emitted in the last 30 years, says a study by Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP).
• The 20 big companies that contributed to almost 33 per cent of world-historic emissions are from the energy and cement sectors.
• The per capita consumption of cement in India is 195 kg, which is far less than the world average of 500 kg and 1000 kg of China, as per Bureau of Energy Efficiency.

Decarbonisation of the cement industry cannot be achieved without technology. Using state-of-the-art technology, cement companies should aim at…

• Making their processes more energy efficient
• Using renewable energy sources
• Shifting to alternative fuels
• Investing in carbon capture and storage
• Utilising other industrial waste as raw material
• Exploring alternative cementitious materials
• Recycling waste and having circular processes

Technology and R&D are the two tools that will enable the cement sector to harness alternative energy such as solar thermal power, make improvements in the usage of biomass and green hydrogen and increase material circularity.
A significant achievement in India has been the substitution of part of the limestone with by-products from other processes in the form of industrial wastes like slag from steel plants and fly ash from thermal power plants. This blending has greatly contributed to helping the Indian cement industry perform better than global players in terms of specific emissions of CO2 per tonne of cement. Slag Cement can substitute 70-80 per cent of OPC in various grades of concrete mixtures, while it can be used 100% in massive mass concrete projects and other industrial structures. Achieving higher thermal efficiencies helps conserve the use of coal. Equally noteworthy has been the gainful utilisation of industrial, municipal and agricultural wastes and biomass to serve as alternative fuels that replace fossil fuels.
We see a lot of constructive initiatives undertaken by the government, too, in this journey towards decarbonisation. For instance, last year, India and the United Kingdom announced the Industrial Deep Decarbonization Initiative (IDDI). It is one of the largest and most diverse coalitions of governments and the private sector to create net-zero carbon industrial products. Over the next three years, the governments will work towards decarbonisation of heavy industries, including, of course, cement. While the sentiment is in the right place here, only time will tell if the efforts match up to the expected outcome.

–Pratap Padode, Founder and Editor-in-chief