On Thursday 30th November the UK construction industry welcomed the long-awaited update to the British Standard for concrete – BS8500.
The British Standards Institute (BSI) is introducing an updated version of the British Standard for concrete, to provide even greater options for concrete and cement manufacture, in the critical area of reducing the embodied carbon.
BS8500 will increase the options of specifying lower-carbon concretes for our diverse customer base, providing greater availability, selection and choice across our entire portfolio, without compromising on performance.
For specifiers of our products, in simple terms, BS 8500 will now allow the specification of ternary cements (cements and combinations containing three main constituents instead of just the two allowed up until now) and mixer combinations. This means that CEMII/A-L (a type of cement that incorporates between 6-20% limestone, reducing the portion of clinker and subsequently the embodied CO2) and GGBS (Ground Granulated Blast-furnace Slag), can be combined in a wider range of exposure classes, and in the future, when they are made available, factory produced ternary composite cements.
The amended concrete standard will serve to keep us on track with our decarbonisation goals, with the primary objective to become a net-zero CO2 company by 2050. It also aligns with our Future in Action programme, to achieve sustainable excellence through climate action, circularity, and natural resource management.
The amendment to BS8500 strongly supports our ambitious global goal for Vertua lower-carbon cement and concrete products to reach half of all cement and concrete sales by 2025. As the first company to introduce net-zero CO2 concrete in 2020, we have the ongoing responsibility to deliver lower carbon products at scale.
BS8500 was discussed at length last week at the Cemex UK Readymix Commercial Conference, where key stakeholders across the Cemex business received updates on how the update will impact their respective business areas. We will continue to keep you updated with further BS8500 updates from across the business as they become available.
In the meantime, the MPA has provided a webinar which provides information on the main revisions to the standard and how the method of specification has changed to facilitate the wider range of lower carbon concretes that will be available.
A recording of this event is now available on demand, on the MPA website: https://www.concretecentre.com/CPD-Events/Events/Sustainability-Series-Lower-Carbon-(Week-3).aspx
Cemex UK issued a press release on Friday 1st December which you can read here.
UK Concrete also issued a press release on Monday 4 December and you can read this here