Turkish Ready Mixed Concrete Association has prepared the “Ready-Mixed Concrete Life Cycle Guide” in order to raise awareness about new environmental approaches affecting today’s business models. Emphasizing that this guide is the first guide that evaluates the life cycle of the construction industry and construction materials and shows the state of the industry with data, Turkish Ready Mixed Concrete Association Chairman Yavuz Işık said: “The Ready-Mixed Concrete Life Cycle Guide is not only for the ready mixed concrete industry and its stakeholders, but also for life. It also serves as an exemplary guide for all individuals and institutions who want to get information about the business cycle.”
Today’s linear economy model, with the “take-use-dispose” principle, causes a large amount of waste to occur, causes rapid consumption of natural resources, environmental degradation, climate change, and increased problems in energy and raw material supply. The increasing population and the needs arising from this increase also cause the economic, social and environmental risks to increase gradually in the linear economy model.
The circular economy, on the other hand, aims to achieve resource-efficient and low-carbon sustainable growth by ensuring that a product or service remains in the economy even when its life cycle is over. Reusing a product in the cycle is based on creating more efficient processes, reducing waste, reproducing and recycling.
The United Nations estimates that 230 billion square meters of new space will be built globally in the next 40 years, doubling the existing floor area of buildings around the world. The majority of this increase will be in Africa and Asia, but significant growth is still expected in Europe, where 25 billion m2 of new construction will be added by 2060. Concrete, which has no practical alternative today, plays and will continue to play an important role in meeting the demand for new buildings and infrastructure.
Concrete is becoming a building material with a high potential to reduce environmental impact
In the last two decades, the current developments in the concrete industry, the production technology and the development of concrete structures have led to performance changes in technical parameters and related environmental impacts. Thanks to the mixture optimization, concrete; had significantly better properties in terms of strength, mechanical performance, durability and resistance to overloads. Concrete is increasingly becoming a building material with a high potential to reduce environmental impact.
Concrete’s technical and technological qualities have a significant impact on many aspects of building sustainability throughout its entire life cycle. A holistic approach to performance evaluation is required, taking into account all important and relevant aspects of sustainability (environmental and economic).
Working in this direction, the Turkish Ready Mixed Concrete Association has prepared a “Ready-Mixed Concrete Life Cycle Guide” in order to increase the awareness of the ready mixed concrete industry and its stakeholders on the new environmental approaches that affect today’s business models, especially the circular economy, life cycle analysis, life cycle cost, environmental product declaration. . In the first part of the guide, subjects such as life cycle analysis, inventory and cost were explained in general, and important topics such as green building certification, embedded carbon and environmental product declaration were covered in detail without going into concrete. While the ready mixed concrete sector was examined in the second part of the guide, important terms related to the subject were explained in detail in the last part of the guide.
The most important part of the guide was the environmental performance of concrete, which was calculated using data obtained as a result of an extensive industry research. Within the scope of the research, it was aimed to determine the average concrete recipes on the basis of strength class in order to calculate the average carbon footprint (embedded carbon) of the ready mixed concrete in our country. In addition, within the scope of the study, the fuel and electricity consumption of the sector and the average distances of raw material sources were investigated, and calculations were made using these data. The total production of the manufacturers participating in the research constitutes 25% of Turkey’s ready mixed concrete production. This ratio was deemed sufficient for reliable representation. Considering the contents and production rates of the products produced by the Turkish ready-mixed concrete sector, an “average product” representing the general public was determined. The carbon footprint of this representative product from the cradle to the door, namely the extraction of raw materials, processing, transportation and production of the product, was calculated as 310 kg CO2 eq/m3. While this value was 285 kg CO2 eq/m3 in C25/30 concrete, which is the lowest strength class within the scope of the study, it was 396 kg CO2 eq/m3 in C45/55 concrete, which is the highest strength class.
We prioritize sustainability in our agenda
Yavuz Işık, Chairman of the Turkish Ready Mixed Concrete Association, who made evaluations about the preparation of THBB’s Ready-Mixed Concrete Life Cycle Guide, said: “Concrete is the most used man-made material in the world. Therefore, sustainability of concrete is important for our future. For this reason, we place sustainability as a top priority in our agenda. Since 2017, we have been working with the Switzerland-based Concrete Sustainability Council (CSC), of which we are a member and a Regional System Operator. THBB Quality Assurance System, which is the Certification Body of CSC, continues its international sustainability certification activities by inspecting the concrete and cement facilities in our country and in our region.”
The Ready Mixed Concrete Life Cycle Guide will be a reference resource
Stating that they have prepared a Ready-Mixed Concrete Life Cycle Guide in order to raise awareness of the ready mixed concrete industry and its stakeholders about the new environmental approaches affecting today’s business models, Yavuz Işık said: “This guide is the first guide that evaluates the life cycle in the construction industry and construction materials and shows the state of the industry with data. it happened. Our guide is an exemplary guide not only for the ready mixed concrete industry and its stakeholders, but also for all individuals and institutions who want to learn about its life cycle. We foresee that the guide will be a reference source for many academicians and students who will work on this subject, beyond the civil engineering departments of universities, as well as in the departments of architecture and environmental engineering.”
