The Generalitat and the Catalan cement industry share the same will to emphasize the values of Sustainability in the promotion and bidding of public works. This coincidence was again evident in the meeting of November 30 between Joan Jaume, president of Infraestructures.cat (the public company responsible for designing, building, preserving and exploiting infrastructure and buildings of the Government) and a delegation of Ciment Català, headed by its president Salvador Fernández Capo. In this way, in public bidding it will be increasingly important to give less weight to the economic offer to include, in contrast, social and environmental criteria. The ultimate goal is to limit economic losses and prioritize aspects of quality and durability.
During the working session, both parties stressed that these criteria must be quantifiable, to avoid arbitrariness or errors of application. Among the parameters or information that can be used are the Contribution Index of the Structure to Sustainability (of the current Instruction of the structural concrete, EHE-08, or the future Structural Code), the Officially Recognized Distinctive (DOR) or the Declarations Product Environmental (DAP). Also, in the future, Officially Recognized Quality Labels (DCOR) or Officially Recognized Sustainability Labels (DSOR), collected in the future Structural Code, among others, could be applied.
The social contribution and the minimization of the environmental impact that will be achieved with the use of these criteria will also allow the construction of roads, railways, water treatment plants, ports or water supply networks to reach a quality and a longer life time. Equipment such as schools, hospitals or sports centers will also benefit from a practice to which cements and concretes, also identified by their ICES, DOR, DCOR, DSOR or DAP, will contribute decisively.