Yiğit Gündoğdu
Marmara Çimento Board Member
Technologies for reducing the environmental impact of cement factories are increasing day by day. How do you think carbon neutral factories will affect the future of the cement industry?
The Turkish cement sector produces the few quality cements in the world. Carbon neutral factories represent a very important development for the future of our world, but it seems that it will be a little difficult to provide fuel, that is, energy stability. I think that this will affect the product quality negatively. I believe that we can overcome this problem with our developing technology and knowledge. As a sector in our country, we are just getting into alternative fuel by increasing our rates. We, as Marmara Cement, will switch to the use of alternative fuels in a very short time and at the highest rate. Even if it is not carbon neutral, we will make many reduction moves. Together with our investment in obtaining heat from our renewable energy sources and recycling waste heat, we will take firm steps towards becoming a carbon neutral factory. As a cement producer, I support the introduction of a carbon tax.
What kind of sensitivity do you, as a company, show about the environment? What are the strategies you follow and actions you take in this field?
First of all, we strive to use alternative raw materials. For example, instead of using iron ore and silica sand in raw meal production, we prefer to use waste raw materials of some industries. Thus, we not only avoid using natural resources, but we also dispose of the waste of an industry that produces waste and transform it into a product. Another issue is our bag filters, which are among our sine qua non. All of our process filters are selected with a capacity that is at least 25% larger than the calculations made. Our aim in doing this is to work with the least emissions.