Displaying items by tag: HeidelbergCement

Germany: HeidelbergCement has joined EPEA’s Heidelberg Circular City Building Material Registry pilot project. The initiative uses EMEA’s Urban Mining Screening digital registry, which is able to estimate the composition of buildings based on building data. HeidelbergCement says that it will enable it to source construction and demolition waste for circular economic use in building materials production. This will support its ReConcrete 360° recycled concrete CO₂ reincorporation project, among other projects. The initiative will turn Heidelberg into Europe’s first Circular City.

“Full circular economy and sustainable construction are central elements of our climate strategy,” said HeidelbergCement chair Dominik von Achten. “We are focusing on the life cycle assessment of our product concrete, including the processing of demolished concrete, and returning it to the construction cycle. By 2030, we want to offer circular alternatives for half of our concrete products.” Von Achten concluded “Together with the city of Heidelberg, also a pioneer in the area of climate protection, we want to use the Circular City project to demonstrate the enormous potential of concrete recycling for future urban construction.”

Germany: The Ministry for Economy and Climate Protection has presented HeidelbergCement with its German Climate and Environment Innovation Prize (IKU) for its ReConcrete-360° concrete recycling process. The process retrieves hardened cement paste from waste demolition concrete for use in place of limestone in clinker and cement production. The recycled material can also bind CO₂ to act as a carbon sink.

Global research and development Wolfgang Dienemann said “With ReConcrete-360°, we have succeeded in developing a limestone substitute from demolished concrete that also allows us to use the carbon-containing exhaust gases from cement production. A small revolution with a big impact: In Germany alone, the CO₂ savings potential of this process is 10Mt/yr. The IKU award underlines that we can be proud of our pioneering innovation.”

Canada: HeidelbergCement has announced its acquisition of a minority stake in concrete technology developer Giatec Scientific. The group says that, together, the partners will drive the development and adoption of industry-leading sensor technology and AI-driven software in order to reduce concrete’s carbon footprint and optimise processes for HeidelbergCement’s ready-mix concrete customers.

HeidelbergCement said “Giatec’s suite of proprietary smart sensors helps with accurate monitoring of concrete throughout its lifecycle, all the way from production to delivery and placement. Combined with sophisticated AI algorithms, which learn continuously from past and present data sets, the real- time sensor data enables concrete producers to optimise concrete mixes, with up to 20% cement reduction in certain applications.”

Czech Republic: Českomoravský Beton has acquired six ready-mixed concrete plants and a sandpit in Moravia from Kámen Zbraslav. The plants have a total capacity of 85,000m³/yr. Českomoravský Beton says that they have a ‘well-established residential and commercial customer base’ in and around Brno.

Parent company HeidelbergCement says that the acquisition drives forward its portfolio optimisation programme. It now operates 80 ready-mixed concrete plants in the Czech Republic.

US: Lehigh Hanson has completed its acquisition of Atlanta-based ready-mix concrete company Meriwether Ready Mix.

Parent company HeidelbergCement’s chair Dominik von Achten said “The acquisition of the Meriwether Ready Mix assets will enhance our integrated footprint in the rapidly growing Metro Atlanta area. These operations better position us to capture this growth potential and serve a broader customer base with a wide range of sustainable, low carbon concrete products and digital solutions. We welcome the Meriwether employees to the HeidelbergCement team.”