Award

December 2020

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52,653 cubic metres of EcoCemPLC was used for the construction of Vancouver House, Vancouver, B.C. D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 0 | 11 Concrete P H OTO G R A P H Y CO U RT E SY L EH I G H C EM EN T and in Canada is very robust, and our group is enjoy- ing our best year ever for our sandwich wall systems." He is referring to the CarbonCast High Performance Insulated Wall Panels from AltusGroup precasters, which with its use of the C-GRID carbon fibre grid (as a shear connector between the inner and outer wythes of concrete) delivers an exterior wall panel with full composite action and continuous insulation. Carson says data and distribution centres are helping to drive the demand for these systems, and that "precast in general is enjoying lots of attention due to less labour required, more quality control, and speed of construction." Accordingly, Carson is enthused that Spring Valley Corp., a facades manufacturer in Ancaster, Ontario, joined AltusGroup in August to collaboratively mar- ket and develop thin precast exteriors using UHPC. "We value UHPC as a future technology driven by admixture, cement, and fibre development," he says. "Spring Valley has refined the use of UHPC technol- ogy in its CA AST panels, and AltusGroup and our members will look to build on its production and admix knowledge in order to explore new markets and applications across North America." In what is an exciting development in the sector, Lehigh Hanson, Inc.'s Lehigh Cement opera- tions has become the first in North America with cement plant-product specific Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), utilizing the new North American Product Category Rule (PCR). These EPDs show the immediate Global Warming Potential (GWP) in Kg of CO2 equivalent reduc- tion when ordinary portland cement (OPC), also known as GU/Type I/II, is switched to EcoCem PLC. Concrete mixtures incorporating EcoCemPLC could reduce the GWP by as much as 10 percent below the use of OPC. As ready mixed concrete produc- ers strive for Lower Carbon Concrete (LCC), they are increasing their use of EcoCemPLC and supplemen- tal cementitious materials (SCMs). The motivation behind the EcoCem brand of prod- ucts is to reduce embodied carbon of cement and concrete. The company introduced EcoCemPLC to the Vancouver market in 2011 as an environmentally responsible cement that delivers excellent perfor- mance, while dramatically reducing the typical CO2 emissions. Lehigh Cement plants in Delta, B.C., and Picton, Ontario, along with the assistance of many proactive ready mixed concrete customers, have placed enough EcoCemPLC into their markets since its introduction this past decade to take the equiva- lent of nearly 35,000 cars off the road for a year. "We have made it one of our top priorities to benchmark and lower our CO2 emissions with ambitious targets," says Shawn McMillan, VP of cement sales and logistics for Lehigh Hanson's Canada Region. "Much like food nutrition labels highlight calorific values, our plant and product- specific EPDs communicate the environmental impact through GWP for cement in a simple and easy-to-understand manner. We intend to use the added product transparency to more effectively gain adoption for our lower carbon products. We have several research projects and studies ongo- ing to continue to optimize the carbon impacts from cement and concrete." Rebar.indd 1 2016-11-03 1:24 PM Euclid Admixture.indd 1 2016-12-20 12:54

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