Sustainable from day one

High quality binders 

In recent years, sustainability has been a hot topic for many companies. This is only logical, since the deadline for the Climate Agreement is getting closer and closer. At Ecocem, on the other hand, the theme of sustainability has been alive and well since day one. And that has been some twenty years now. The originally Irish company is successfully making concrete more sustainable and with Superfine it has yet another first. 

Ecocem is a pioneer in making concrete more sustainable. "Already in 2001 we were aware that something had to be done to make concrete more sustainable towards the future," says Jeroen Langenberg of Ecocem Benelux. "There is an awful lot of CO2 trapped in concrete and particularly in cement. With eco₂cem, we provide a sustainable alternative to cement, significantly reducing the carbon footprint of concrete. It was quite groundbreaking at the time. Especially because we marketed the high-quality binder, consisting of ground granulated blast furnace slag, separately. The concrete industry can add it at will (up to 80%) to its own mix to make it many times more sustainable." 

Ecocem Superfine

Ecocem's sustainable binding agent has been further refined and developed over the years. Ecocem itself has also grown substantially to now have four production sites in Europe, including still one in Moerdijk, the very first production site within the group. "We are well aware that granulated blast furnace slag is not the only solution to green concrete worldwide. For that, supply is simply too limited," says Langenberg. "We therefore continue to invest continuously in further development with CO2 reduction of concrete as the main driver." This is also why Ecocem opened a major innovation center in Paris in 2020. Together with a number of universities, large-scale research into new solutions is being conducted here. Ecocem Superfine is the latest innovation. Because it is very finely ground, Superfine reacts faster in contact with water. This results in even greater CO2 savings as well as better flow behavior and strength of the concrete. 

Sustainability in DNA

Ecocem is thus working hard to further green the cement and concrete industry worldwide by producing sustainable binders. "We like to pull the cart, but also very emphatically seek cooperation with universities, partners and sister companies," Langenberg acknowledges. And more and more parties also know where to find Ecocem and are happy to enter into cooperation. For example, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, an investment club founded by Bill Gates with the goal of accelerating sustainability, took a 10 percent stake in Ecocem in 2021. "Sustainability is in our DNA. For over 20 years. So we've already put many millions of tons of high-performance binders into the market and saved an awful lot of CO2. And our goal is to increase and accelerate that even further into the future."