This audio is automatically generated. Please let us know if you have any comments.
Businesses and state and local governments pledged Wednesday to produce and use low carbon cement in infrastructure projectsaccording to a White House press release.
The public sector is the largest buyer of construction materials, used to build and maintain infrastructure such as roads, bridges, dams, ports and courts, according to the statement. The initiative aims to leverage this government purchasing power to send a strong market signal in support of cleaner building materials.
The commitments are from the states of New York, Michigan and Washington; New York and Los Angeles; major cement producers such as Heidelberg Materials North America, Cemex, National Ready Mixed Concrete and Ozinga; the tech giant Amazon; and real estate companies.
The production of construction materials is a major source of pollution: Concrete and steel manufacturing alone accounts for more than 15% of climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, according to the EPA.
The White House partnered with the environmental nonprofits Rocky Mountain Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council to hold a series of regional meetings across the country on the issue. The Biden administration hopes the new public and private commitments from these events will help drive cleaner building materials markets.
New York City-based Turner Construction, for example, pledged to build at least five demonstration projects with 50 percent lower-emissions concrete by 2026. West Sacramento, Calif.-based Clark Pacific , which makes prefabricated building systems, promised five demonstration projects that would reduce cement use by 25%.
Biden’s Buy Clean 2021 initiative, created through an executive order, aims to green the federal government’s procurement practices and promote American manufacturing, construction materials with low carbon emissionswith the ultimate goal of building a net-zero emissions economy by 2050. To date, federal agencies have deployed $4.5 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act to support Buy Clean, according to the release.
In August, the EPA announced its plan for a new label program to help shoppers identify more climate-friendly building materials for federal building, highway and infrastructure projects. The labels will define what constitutes “clean” products, in support of Buy Clean.
The tag program will prioritize steel, glass, asphalt and concrete, which make up the vast majority of construction products purchased with federal funds. Materials that earn the label will be included in a central, publicly accessible registry, making them easier to identify and purchase.
