MPA Sustainability Report 2020 highlights continuing improvement across the mineral products sector
The Mineral Products Association (MPA) has published its Sustainable Development Report 2020 which covers a range of data from 2019/20 and is aligned with MPA’s seven main strategic priorities and the corresponding objectives and targets. Despite challenging circumstances, the report outlines improvements across the mineral products sector.
Due to COVID-19, the UK economy is estimated to have contracted by 10% in 2020. However, construction activity and mineral products markets started to recover faster than the rest of the UK economy in the second half of the year. During this difficult period, the MPA continued to champion industry issues and a number of crucial documents were published or updated including the UK Concrete and Cement Roadmap to Beyond Net Zero and the revised MPA Biodiversity Strategy.
Major renewable hydrogen demo project comes online at Welsh cement plant
Building materials giant Hanson UK has installed a renewable hydrogen generation unit at one of its facilities near Swansea, Wales, to test the potential of replacing natural gas with lower-carbon alternatives.
Pictured: An aerial view of the plant in Port Talbot
The unit has been installed at the firm’s Regen ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS) plant in Port Talbot. It contains an electrolyser which, powered by renewable electricity generated by onsite solar and wind arrays, splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. The separated hydrogen is then funnelled into the burner used to generate heat for the plant’s processes, mitigating the need for some of the natural gas.
Jeremy Greenwood has been appointed Chair of UK Concrete
Jeremy Greenwood has been appointed Chair of UK Concrete to work with Director Chris Leese to marshall the collective resources within MPA in The Concrete Centre, MPA Cement, BRMCA and British Precast as part of the roadmap the sector is implementing to go ‘Beyond Net Zero by 2050’.
MPA CEO Nigel Jackson said: ‘I am delighted that Jeremy is joining the MPA team as Chair of UK Concrete. Whilst at Tarmac he played a major role in developing the thinking within the sector on the promotion of concrete’s sustainability credentials and is a natural and passionate champion for what is the world’s most sought-after man-made material. Working closely with the UK Concrete team and supported by the combined resources of MPA the industry is signalling its determination to go ‘on the front foot’ to defend and promote the use of essential concrete in the built environment using hard evidence and integrity. Jeremy’s extensiv
UK concrete and cement sector sets out roadmap for beyond net zero
The UK concrete and cement industry has launched a roadmap to become net negative by 2050, removing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it emits each year.
Launching the ambitious roadmap, UK Concrete, part of the Mineral Products Association (MPA), has identified that net zero can be met through decarbonised electricity and transport networks, fuel switching, greater use of low-carbon cements and concretes as well as carbon capture, usage or storage (CCUS) technology for cement manufacture.
The ‘
Roadmap to Beyond Net Zero’ calculates the potential of each technology and the carbon savings which can be achieved. CCUS technology is vital to delivering net zero manufacturing and according to the roadmap will deliver 61 per cent of the required carbon savings.