The Catalan cement industry reaffirms its commitment to decarbonization in an adverse market context

The commitment to achieving a zero-carbon footprint of the Catalan cement industry remains inalienable. Along these lines, it will be necessary to advance the Roadmap to achieve climate neutrality, developed in 2021, to adapt it both to the improvements already achieved by the productive facilities of the sector and to update it in accordance with the most ambitious objectives set in the EU. The companies grouped in Ciment Català will have to analyse the levers to achieve the sector’s decarbonization objectives, which include material and energy recovery actions and the Circular Economy, technological innovations such as CO₂ capture, efficiency improvements or the use of energy from sources renewables, among others.

In this sense, the decisive support of the administration is essential in such relevant issues as the use of alternative fuels, particularly biomass, in the manufacture of cement, the streamlining of administrative procedures to make possible the efficient capture of CO₂, or the implementation of systems for its transportation and permanent storage. The Roadmap is a fundamental instrument that demonstrates that the decarbonization of cement and its derivatives, irreplaceable products in a sustainable and circular society, is possible by 2050 and responds to the unalterable commitments assumed by the industry in the fight against Climate Change.

This process occurs in a particularly difficult market context since Catalonia has accumulated 7 consecutive months of decline in cement consumption. Thus, in October there was a drop of 8.3%, which places the year-on-year variation at -5.2% and only 2.2 million tons consumed. The sluggishness of the domestic market is offset by the increase in exports, which, although in October they suffered a decrease of 42.5%, in the last year they grew by 8.5% and reached 1.8 million tons. Salvador Fernández Capo, president of the Ciment Català employers’ association, affirms that the lack of investment in public works “explains the fall in cement consumption in Catalonia” while recalling that per capita consumption (233 kg per inhabitant per year) “is one among the lowest in Europe, 50% lower than the EU average”. However, it separates the sector’s commitment to decarbonization from the decline in sales: “the commitment to carbon neutrality of Catalan manufacturing companies of cement is absolutely firm and independent of the market situation”.