Castle Cement leads the way in protecting the environment.

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• 8th November 2007
• Quarrying
 

Major investment in production facilities has enabled Castle Cement to become the UK's lowest emitter of carbon dioxide per tonne of cement, at a level five per cent better than the UK industry average.

In addition it has greatly increased its use of waste material as both kiln fuel and as raw material and has reduced emissions of sulphur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen and dust.

Its ongoing commitment to UK manufacture will bring more environmental benefits by avoiding the potential additional carbon dioxide burden created by importing cement.

Managing director Mike Eberlin points out: "All this means the overall environmental impact of one tonne of Castle Cement is about 50 per cent of the UK average."

Castle will continue to invest for the future, but Mr.Eberlin claims:

"The drive towards more sustainable practices within the UK cement industry is being slowed by the planning and legislative environment that exists here."

In Castle's fifth public report on its environmental and sustainability performance Mr.Eberlin also warns; "Sometimes the demands made by product specifiers seek instant improvements that are not practical."

As an example of the timescale involved in completing major projects he points to the difficulties the company had in completing all the processes required to bring a new kiln on stream in north Wales.

"From our decision to make the £64 million investment to having the operation fully on stream has taken six years. Yet its value is easy to see. It has allowed us to close five less efficient kilns, three at that plant at Padeswood and two at a plant in Lancashire. "The cumulative effect in 2006, compared to 2004 data, was to reduce by 16 per cent the total amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the company."

Mr.Eberlin stresses that Castle has increased its overall capacity to help overcome the problems of shortfalls in national supply experienced throughout the UK cement industry in 2006 and 2007.

 "This commitment will ensure ample cement supplies for the future, avoiding imports and their associated higher level of carbon emissions.

We estimate a tonne of imported cement carries an additional CO2 burden of around ten per cent when it arrives at the port of delivery, over a comparable product manufactured by Castle."

He claims, "This is because of the lower thermal energy performance and alternative fuel use by Castle as well as the additional CO2 emitted in the shipping and offloading of the imported product."

In addition he highlights Castle's use of waste-derived fuels, saying; "Today about 40 per cent of our kiln fuel comes from that source and we expect that to increase to around 60 per cent in 2008 compared with a 15 per cent average by the industry as a whole in 2005. In total Castle makes productive use of over 412,000 tonnes of material that would otherwise have been incinerated or buried in landfill sites which means that 130kg of waste is recovered for every tonne of cement produced by Castle."

Castle Cement first reported on its environmental performance in 1999 and has reported every two years since then. The latest report covers the broader issues of sustainability and the assessment includes four main sections, which are: social responsibility, economic performance, environmental factors and the use of natural resources.

The last three reports have been independently audited by the British Standards Institution for accuracy both of the written word and the data published. This year Castle commissioned Ove Arup & Partners to undertake a sustainability appraisal in order to evaluate its operational performance.

Copies of the report are available on the web site http://www.hub-4.com/admin/www.lowcarboncement.co.uk