White House cements ‘clean’ construction deal with states, industry - E&E News by POLITICO

Companies, state and local governments are making new pledges Wednesday to produce and use low-carbon cement in infrastructure, according to a White House memo viewed first by POLITICO’s E&E News.

The commitments are from New York, New York City, Los Angeles, Michigan and Washington, as well as major cement producers, technology giants like Amazon and real estate companies. They come amid doubts about whether heavy industries like steel and concrete are reducing emissions fast enough to meet climate targets.

“The production of construction materials is a major source of pollution,” the White House said in the announcement. “These new commitments will advance the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to make U.S. manufacturing the cleanest and most competitive in the world, boosting U.S. economic competitiveness and creating good-paying jobs.”

According to the memo, New York state is vowing to reduce the emissions of concrete used in state infrastructure 30 percent by 2028, compared to 2022 emissions data by an industry group called the National Ready Mix Concrete Association. Los Angeles is committing to a 15 percent emission reduction target for materials in new infrastructure construction.

Washington State will announce new details on a state law that boosts state purchases of “clean” construction materials, while New York City is expected to begin requiring “environmental product declarations” for concrete and steel products, the White House said.

Concrete producer Heidelberg Materials North America is pledging to reduce company emissions 25 percent by 2030, and National Ready Mixed Concrete Company will demonstrate five projects of “near-zero emissions concrete by 2027,” the White House said.

It also mentions a new commitment from Amazon Web Services to partner with Summit Materials to use low-carbon concrete in new data center construction, along with other technology pledges. Those include plans from the Open Compute Project Foundation — which is working with Google, Microsoft, AWS and Meta — to publish results from tests on low-carbon concrete with up to 50 percent lower emissions.

Several real estate companies also are vowing to use low-carbon materials. Turner Construction Company, for instance, is pledging to build five demonstration projects with low-carbon concrete by 2026.

The White House memo said the pledges — which resulted from consultations with the Natural Resources Defense Council and clean energy group RMI — “send a strong market signal.”

They’re part of the Federal-State Buy Clean Partnership, a Biden administration program that partners 13 states with federal agencies to support procurement of low-carbon construction materials.

Many experts say public procurement is a powerful tool for decarbonization.

“Almost 40% of U.S. cement goes into public projects; state and local governments alone spend more than $100 billion annually on road construction, using around 30 million metric tons of cement,” Ash Lauth, senior campaign strategist for cement at the nonprofit Industrious Labs, said in an email when asked by E&E News about the status of decarbonization in the concrete sector. Industrious Labs is not part of the White House announcement.

“When you add in the impact of federal legislation like the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which allocated $400 billion for roads and bridges and reauthorized $270 billion in Federal aid for highways, that’s a lot of cement,” Lauth said.

The concrete sector has enabled human development since the Roman Empire, helping construct the interstate highway system and skyscrapers towering over U.S. cities.

But cement kilns are traditionally powered by fossil fuels like coal so they can achieve sufficiently high temperatures. The concrete sector is responsible for roughly 8 percent of global carbon emissions.

A recent study by the U.S. Geologic Survey found that New York City contains more than 750 million tons — or 1.68 trillion pounds — of concrete, glass and steel, causing the iconic metropolis to sink 1 to 2 millimeters a year as sea-level rise threatens low-lying areas.

Now, as the global economy grows, concrete is being laid to build new highways, hospitals, and other modern infrastructure. Global concrete sector emissions are set to balloon as much as 50 percent in the coming years if decarbonization efforts fail, according to the Global Cement and Concrete Association.

Lauth said the global market for “green cement” is expected to pass $47 billion by 2028, a 57 percent increase over 2023 investment levels.

The White House memo touts roughly $1.7 billion in DOE spending from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law to demonstrate clean concrete projects at scale. Heidelberg is now using the grant money to advance a carbon capture demonstration project.

But most of that funding is still under negotiation with companies, and the CEO of steel giant Cleveland-Cliffs recently told POLITICO he’s considering forgoing the money, even though the company later reaffirmed its commitment. A recent report from the nonprofit International Council on Clean Transportation says fossil-free steel is failing to gain traction in the U.S. and European auto sectors.

In September, the White House launched a pilot project to measure the greenhouse gas emissions of industrial products. Conservative allies of former President Donald Trump panned it as a precursor to a carbon tax. A tax on carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas emissions would require new legislation from Congress.

This story also appears in Climatewire.