Chief Executive's Upfront
A Resilient, Low Carbon, Concrete Way Forward

In the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle there has been a lot of comment around the urgent need to plan and build resilient infrastructure, whether that be flood mitigation, electricity supply or roading networks.

Rob Gaimster, Chief Executive

While there are many questions to be answered, there is no doubt that concrete will be a key part of the eventual answers, more so as industry pledges to dramatically reduce its carbon footprint as set out it the soon to be released Aotearoa New Zealand Concrete and Cement Industry - Roadmap to Net-Zero Concrete 2050.

RESILIENT CONCRETE INFRASTRUCTURE

Concrete’s overarching properties based around durability make it an asset in both mitigating and adapting to climate change. It forms part of wind farms, hydroelectric schemes and geothermal plants.

Concrete can also improve the resilience of buildings and communities through improved stormwater management, flood defences and many other forms of critical infrastructure, such as our state highways and local roads.

Recent weather events have demonstrated that New Zealand requires a durable, long-term solution to mounting infrastructure woes. As part of a multi-pronged approach, the government must give serious consideration to building concrete roads, particularly for our critical arterial routes.

During the first part of 2023, the condition of the country’s roads took up a lot of column inches and airtime minutes, as a plague of potholes saw frustration grow. The situation was exacerbated when periods of hot weather saw asphalt surfaces literally come unstuck.

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has indicated that one approach moving forward will be to relocate stretches of vulnerable roads to more stable ground. While re-routing roads is a legitimate tool to build a more resilient transport network, we must also ensure that the materials it is built with are also resilient.

An increase in severe and medium-impact weather events will intensify the current problems, and given delays in upkeep, it is likely the problem will get worse before it gets better.

The level of maintenance work required to our asphalt road network is enormous. A situation that would have only been made more challenging by the closure of the Marsden Point oil refinery and subsequent questions around the bitumen supply chain.

The inherent durability of concrete roads would lessen this burden, a priority as the impact of climate change will make extreme weather events more frequent.

Vague concerns around access to buried services, skid resistance, surface noise and seismic resilience of concrete roads can all be accounted for through appropriate design, as demonstrated overseas.

The economics of concrete roads has been proven time and time again, with Infometrics having shown that in a preferred scenario concrete is around 30 percent less expensive than its asphalt counterpart.

The final tick in the plus column is for the sustainability credentials of concrete (including low carbon attributes) and industry commitment to decarbonise.

These are clearly articulated in the Aotearoa New Zealand Concrete and Cement Industry - Roadmap to Net-Zero Concrete 2050, set for publication mid-2023.

LOW CARBON CONCRETE INFRASTRUCTURE

By describing an achievable pathway to producing net-zero concrete by 2050, the decarbonisation roadmap sets out a positive vision for how the New Zealand cement and concrete industry can play a major role in building a sustainable future.

Industry has already made progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. An updated independent review of our efforts shows that the industry has reduced emissions from concrete production by 11 percent between 2005 and 2020, despite production increasing by 11 percent during that same period.

This roadmap includes the levers (e.g., rapid uptake of supplementary cementitious materials such as fly ash and ground granulated blast furnace slag to replace cement) and milestones needed to achieve net-zero carbon concrete by mid-century.

It covers both ready mixed concrete and concrete products, and also involves the major participants in the concrete value chain, including cement manufacturers, concrete producers and designers of buildings and infrastructure.

Developed with support from sustainability firm thinkstep-anz and engagement with Concrete NZ’s member groups, the roadmap is also informed by, and aligned with, international work, such as the Global Cement & Concrete Association’s (GCCA) 2050 Cement and Concrete Industry Roadmap for Net Zero Concrete.

Building on past and current initiatives, the concrete industry will look to remain successful in reducing its emissions by leveraging further R&D, investment and commitment from researchers, government and all stakeholders throughout the value chain.

With its mid-year publication, our roadmap to 2050 net-zero will further strengthen the case for concrete roads to be part of plans to (re)build more sustainable infrastructure.