Page 38 - 2020 Sustainability Report

ENVIRONMENTAL STEWARDSHIP

Understanding the Impact of Blending and Fuel Choice

While we are proud of these achievements — and, in fact,
as discussed below with respect to our 2030 reduction “This also places us well below the
goals, we have committed to further reduce the carbon U.S. cement industry average
intensity of our cement and magnesia businesses — we
also believe it is important to recognize critical regulatory intensity of 0.79 metric tonnes of
differences between the U.S. and the EU (and other CO e/metric tonnes of domestic
2
international jurisdictions) that result in meaningful cement in 2019 (the most recent
differences in the makeup of corresponding end-products
and reported emissions metrics. Those differences, in turn, year for which data is available
make like-for-like comparisons of the emissions from the USEPA) and makes us one
performance of such companies challenging.
of the more carbon efficient
For example, outside of the U.S., the allowable rate of cement producers in the United
“clinker substitution” — the replacement of ground clinker
in cement with alternate materials such as pozzolan, slag States.”
and fly ash — is much higher than it is in the U.S. because
of the limitations imposed by the American Society for
Testing and Materials, Inc. (ASTM) and Department of In addition, in the U.S., alternative fuel use by the
Transportation (DOT) standards for cement. While our cement industry averages only 15 percent of the fuel mix,
clinker substitution rate (like other U.S. producers) compared to 36 percent of the fuel mix used in the European
generally does not exceed 10 percent, the average clinker Union and as high as 60 percent in Germany. 5
substitution rate for international cement companies is in In large part, this is because combustion of secondary
the range of 28 percent to 50 percent, depending on the alternate fuels is incentivized in the European Union, whereas
type of cement. Accordingly, even where their clinker in the U.S. environmental laws and USEPA regulations create
4
intensity (the amount of CO generated in producing a hurdles to using these materials as fuel sources. Moreover,
2
tonne of clinker) is comparable to our 2020 rate of 0.836 the calculation of reportable CO emissions under
2
net metric tonnes of CO /metric tonnes of clinker (and in international regulations differs materially from the
2
many cases is actually higher), international cement calculation allowed under USEPA regulation. The European
companies can reduce the carbon intensity they publicly Union Gross CO 2 Emission rates exclude CO 2 emissions from
report by simply substituting higher percentages of non- alternative fuels while the widely reported Net CO 2 emission
clinker products for clinker in their end product, rather rates do not include the biogenic or alternative fuel CO 2
than actually reducing total emissions or improving contributions. Again, if we used a hypothetical 75%
efficiencies in the manufacturing process. In fact, if we clinker factor and calculated our emissions using the
were to use a hypothetical 75% clinker factor for our Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA)/
cements, we estimate our intensity would be reduced European calculation method and our current fuel mix,
from 0.75 to approximately 0.62 net metric tonnes of we estimate that our intensity would see a further
Absolute Gross CO /metric tonnes of cement reduction to approximately 0.53 Net metric tonnes of
2
equivalent. CO /metric tonnes of cement equivalent basis.
2
4 European cement standard EN 197-1 “Cement – Part 1: composition, specifications and conformity criteria for common cements”, as reported by
CEMBUREAU.
5 PCA Response to House Select Committee on Climate Crisis dated 11/22/2019, pg. 5.

36 2020 SUSTAINABILITY REPORT