Significant preservation of crack-free commercial floors

If you want to minimize your environmental impact when constructing a logistics building, you will strike the biggest blow by using a sustainable concrete floor. After all, concrete is one of the most polluting building materials in the world. Therefore, when large distribution centers are built, the concrete floor is responsible for a large part of the total CO2 emissions. Greymatter technology leads to as much as fifty percent CO2 reduction. And this percentage is only increasing, explains Daniel Toonen to us. He works as a senior sales engineer at Van Berlo, which developed this technology. 

"It is an 'on going' process. Our R&D department is constantly working to further innovate this sustainable technology," Toonen said. "For example, new circular materials regularly come on the market that allow us to partially replace gravel. Now limestone flour replaces part of the cement and we further use mainly blast furnace cement and a minimum of Portland cement. In addition, laser diffraction provides better grain packing with less cement. By taking various measurements, we have insight into how the concrete floor develops. We use this data to further optimize material use and design."

Sustainability Score

"LinkedIn is full of companies with all kinds of sustainability ambitions. However, precisely at the point where a large profit can be made very easily, we find that there is still too little knowledge of the possibilities. Concrete is quite a polluting product, but you need it to make floors. So the best way to make a significant positive impact on the environmental impact is to produce the floor as sustainably as possible. And that starts with using as little cement as possible, the material that emits the most CO2. Thanks to Greymatter technology, concrete can be made that meets the standard, but with much less cement. So with that, one can easily make a huge hit on the sustainability score."

No cracking

With Greymatter technology, Van Berlo not only succeeded in developing a low-CO2 concrete floor, but also one that is free of shrinkage cracks. Crack-free floors require less maintenance, are more hygienic and remove obstacles in the business process. "For each project, we conduct research to determine the best concrete composition for the most optimal result," Toonen said. "The specifications of Greymatter technology are flexible. When developing a logistics floor, we make the decision together with the client as to how far we will go with the performance of a floor. With all properties, we look for the optimum. Not only crack-free and low CO2, but we also include things like flatness and stability."

International ambition

Van Berlo is market leader in the field of high-end floors for warehouses. With its own engineers and executives, it has all the knowledge and experience to fully unburden the customer and offer distinctive custom solutions. Its R&D department develops, in addition to "smarter concrete," machines and software. "Our goal, besides being the quality producer we have been for more than 45 years, is to become the knowledge player in the market that has its own execution apparatus," concludes Toonen. "The Benelux is becoming too small for our ambition and that is why we are going into Europe." As part of this ambition, Van Berlo has actively sought cooperation with building users, project developers and material handling suppliers & integrators. "We are in talks with parties like Vanderlande, KNAPP, DHL and DSV so we can exchange information about each other's needs and the possibilities we can offer."