Ahmet Tursun
Seza Cement Factory Manager
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 gases released from the chimney during cement production can cause irreversible damage to the environment if technology is not used. For this reason, it is of great importance that all players operating in the cement sector, both in the world and in our country, make production in environmentally sensitive factories.
In this process, businesses need to adapt to the Border Carbon Regulation, which is expected to be implemented by 2023 at the latest, especially within the scope of the European Green Deal. This regulation will affect all stakeholders of the industry, from large-scale enterprises to small-scale enterprises that are suppliers of these enterprises. All the details about the regulation have not been finalized, but businesses that are sensitive to this issue are already preparing to keep up with the transformation. On the other hand, at the beginning of this year, China published rules allowing for the first time to set pollution limits for large energy utilities. Accordingly, companies will be able to buy the right to pollute from other companies with a lower carbon footprint, but it will become more costly to produce them. Thus, overall emissions are expected to be reduced. Therefore, we, as the Turkish cement industry, must be prepared for all of them.
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?
Establishing an environmentally friendly cement factory requires a sizable investment. However, these investments provide both a significant efficiency and an environmental and therefore a social benefit in the long run. With this awareness, we have made some investments in order to raise the environmental awareness in the sector to a higher level, although it brings additional costs.
We are currently producing with dust emission values far below the legal limits set for both our country and EU countries. We use a bag filter system in all units in our factory, including the intermediate units. Thanks to this system, the dust emission of our facility to the environment is extremely low. We are at a level well below the dust particle emission limit values determined in national and international standards. We use flue gas in recycling. All of our processes are of European origin. With the RoboLab, Scada and Expert system, we produce in an environmentally friendly factory with high energy efficiency, low calorie values and low standard deviation, and sustainable quality.
However, we continue our efforts to establish a solar power plant in a region very close to Seza Cement. Because it is renewable energy, it is an environmentally friendly technology that will reduce carbon emissions. We are building the power plant primarily to meet the electricity consumption of our factory. At the first stage, we will have an installed capacity that will meet 30 percent of the entire electricity expenditure of the factory. We see this not only as an investment, but also as our social responsibility project. Over time, we will further increase our investments in this area. Thus, we aim to contribute to reducing the energy import bill of our country.
