Concrete production

In the last two decades environmental issues in the concrete industry have been paid a lot of attention, aiming at reducing the total environmental impact of concrete structures to a minimum, without compromising on their performance. A lot of different tools have been developed in order to reduce the environmental impact of concrete and concrete structures and to promote the production of "green concrete". These tools and the technologies behind them vary considerably across Europe due to regional/national differences in legislation, market conditions and traditions in the construction industry.

Concrete production plant

The construction industry as a whole has suffered from an image of being dirty, noisy and polluting in the eyes of the public, especially when it comes to construction works with "heavy" construction materials such as concrete. This negative image needs to be reversed, which is being recognized by the industry. A lot of work is going on within the various European industrial associations resulting in the formation of environmental work groups and the publication of environmental declarations.
During the last century concrete has developed into the most important building material in the world. This is partly due to the fact that concrete is produced from natural materials, available in all parts of the globe, and partly due to the fact that concrete is a versatile material, giving architectural freedom.

The production of concrete annually amounts to 1.5-3 tonne per capita in the industrialized world: this makes the concrete industry including all of its suppliers a major player in the building sector. Thus, improving the sustainability of the concrete industry automatically will lead to significant improvements in the building sector as a whole.

Since concrete consists of a number of various constituents the environmental impact of concrete production is a complex mechanism partly governed by the individual impacts from each of these constituents and partly governed by the combined effect of the constituents when they are mixed together. The aggregate part of concrete normally accounts for 70-75 % of its volume and therefore the environmental issues of aggregate production strongly influence concrete production. Furthermore, cement production is associated with large energy consumption and CO₂ emissions. Thus, the sustainability of concrete as a material is strongly influenced by the cement industry and the aggregate industry. However, since concrete is most often reinforced by means of steel bars this material needs also be included in a total sustainability analysis. The amount of steel present in a reinforced concrete structure vary according to its purpose and the design conditions, but a rebar content of 200 kg per m³ concrete is not unusual for non-prestressed structures. Comparing the energy consumptions for cement and steel production it is seen that this figure gives energy consumptions for the steel production to be about 3 times as high as for the cement. This small example illustrates the need to keep the holistic perspective when considering sustainability.

The environmental aspects of concrete production are discussed more in detail. It can be accessed through the following link:

• Environmental impacts - Sustainability

In addition, some future research needs for the concrete production sector have been identified within the ECOserve Network.

< Back

Top of page

© Copyright 2003 by ECOserve