White House touts low-carbon concrete buy-in from suppliers, contractors | Construction Dive

The Biden administration wants to leverage public procurement as a decarbonization tool, in partnership with the likes of Turner Construction, Clark Pacific and Ozinga.

Companies and state and local governments made pledges Wednesday to produce and use low-carbon cement in infrastructure projects, according to a White House news release.

The public sector is the largest buyer of construction materials, used to build and maintain infrastructure such as roads, bridges, dams, ports and courthouses, according to the release. The initiative aims to harness 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 City and Los Angeles; major cement producers including Heidelberg Materials North America, Cemex, National Ready Mixed Concrete and Ozinga; technology giant Amazon; and real estate companies.

Production of construction materials is a major source of pollution: Concrete and steel manufacturing alone generate over 15% of climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, per the EPA.

The White House collaborated with environmental nonprofits Rocky Mountain Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council to hold a series of regional meetings around the country on the issue. The Biden administration hopes the new public and private commitments from these events will help boost markets for cleaner construction materials.

New York City-based Turner Construction, for example, promised to build at least five demonstration projects using concrete with 50% lower emissions by 2026. West Sacramento, California-headquartered Clark Pacific, which makes prefabricated building systems, pledged five demonstration projects that will reduce cement use by 25%.

Biden’s 2021 Buy Clean initiative, created through executive order, aims to green the federal government’s procurement practices and promote American-made, lower-carbon building materials, with the ultimate goal of building a net-zero emissions economy by 2050. So far, federal agencies have deployed $4.5 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act to support Buy Clean, per the release.

In August, the EPA announced its plan for a new label program to help purchasers identify more climate-friendly construction materials for federal building, highway and infrastructure projects. The labels will define what constitutes “clean” products, in support of Buy Clean.

The label program will prioritize steel, glass, asphalt and concrete, which represent the vast majority of construction products purchased with federal funds. Materials that earn the label will be listed in a central, publicly accessible registry, making it easier to identify and purchase them.