RC109 NovDec 2023 - Magazine - Page 8
LEADERSHIP
Cement Association of
Canada CEO Adam Auer on
the sustainable path forward
by Andrew Snook
Adam Auer has been
with the Cement
Association of Canada
since 2012 and was
appointed president
and CEO in 2022.
HIS PAST SPRING, the Cement Association of Canada
(CAC) announced its Concrete Zero Action Plan for
reducing Canada’s cement and concrete industry
carbon emissions to net-zero by 2050. As part of this
goal, a 40 per cent reduction in carbon emissions is
the target for 2030.
To learn more about the CAC’s carbon reduction
strategy for the cement and concrete industry, Renew
Canada spoke to Adam Auer, CAC president and CEO.
Auer joined the CAC in 2012, serving as vice-president of
environment and sustainability, where he worked with
government, industry, environmental and other civil
society groups to promote and enhance concrete’s
T
Reducing the cement and concrete industry’s carbon
emissions by 40 per cent by 2030 is a very ambitious
target. What are the leading drivers for helping CAC
members achieve this target?
We are focused on getting to net-zero by 2050, but we felt
it was important to model what we think is achievable
in a shorter timeframe as well. That’s why we included
targets in our action plan for 2030 and 2040. And for 2030,
it’s really an acceleration of existing emissions reduction
strategies.
About 30 per cent of the emissions that are associated
with the production of cement come from the combustion
of fossil fuels. A big part of our strategy is to accelerate
fuel substitution in our sector. We’ve overcome many
of the policy barriers to be able to do that. And so,
now we’re starting to see investments 昀氀ow into the
infrastructure to handle lower carbon fuels for facilities
across the country, and signi昀椀cant reductions coming
from that space within the 2030 timeframe.
The other big strategy is materials substitution by
reducing the amount of clinker in our cements (clinker
is the carbon intensive component of cement in the 昀椀nal
cement recipe) and then making further reductions by
using supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs)
in the concrete that reduce the amount of cement, and
e昀昀ectively, the amount of clinker that ends up in your
concrete.
In Canada, when we use supplementary cementitious
materials, it tends to happen at the concrete phase. So,
it’s integrated into the concrete mix design. But there are
some further e昀케ciencies, environmental and otherwise,
by adding those same materials at the cement stage,
grinding them with clinker, gypsum, and limestone, to
produce a lower carbon cement. We already have some
companies that have been introducing the use of those
blended cements. We see an increase of that across the
country as another part of our strategy to get to where we
need to by 2030.
In the grand scheme of things, the biggest impacts
will be after 2030. We see carbon capture utilization and
storage (CCUS) as a big part of our net-zero action plan.
Without CCUS, we estimate we can get over 60 per cent
of the way to net-zero using a combination of strategies,
like fuel substitution, clinker replacement and material
e昀케ciency in construction, but there’s no way to net-zero
without CCUS.
Andrew Snook is a
freelance business-tobusiness writer based in
Mississauga, Ont.
8
RENEW CANADA – NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2023
RENEWCANADA.NET
CEMENT ASSOCIATION OF CANADA
COUNTDOWN
TO NET-ZERO
contribution to sustainability. Before joining the CAC,
Auer managed Environment Canada’s Corporate
Environmental Innovation initiative—a multi-stakeholder
program to promote the business and 昀椀nancial case
for corporate environmental leadership and the link
between sustainability and an innovative and competitive
economy. He has more than 20 years of experience in the
昀椀eld of sustainability.
