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Kliwinski, also on the board of the state chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, said he tries to minimize the use of concrete. He added that not everyone focuses on the environmental impact of constructing a building.
“When you take into account all of the extraction, harvesting, shipping, manufacturing, installation that goes with building products, that carbon footprint far outweighs the operational carbon footprint of a building,” he said, so products like CarbonCure’s could prove useful.
Kayla Reddington, a regional sustainability manager for New York-based Turner Construction Co. and board
member at
USGBC New
Jersey, said
CarbonCure
is among the
materials
Turner has been
researching to
reduce carbon
in concrete. Others include ground- glass pozzolan, which is made from recycled glass, and Blue Planet’s synthetic limestone, which captures carbon dioxide emissions from various industries as well as from the atmosphere.
The challenge, she said, is that ready-mix suppliers will have to
test each mix to make sure it meets specifications, which isn’t a quick process. And New Jersey, unlike states such as California, doesn’t set carbon requirements for projects.
That could change. Two state Assembly bills under consideration would set a purchasing preference for so-called low-embodied-carbon concrete and offer tax incentives for concrete products that use carbon- reducing technology.
Reddington said clients need to request carbon-reducing materials so that suppliers can respond to demand. In the meantime, Turner is always looking to improve its sustainability.
“We look forward to those clients asking for those changes, because that really helps us push our initiatives,” said Reddington, who is based in the company’s Somerset office.
Sudler Cos. touted its commitment to ecofriendly construction
techniques this past spring when
it unveiled a 206,140-square-foot manufacturing and distribution center in Fountain Inn, South Carolina, the first piece of its planned 2.5 million-square-foot
Fox Hill Business Park. According to Brian Sudler, the firm used CarbonCure after learning of it from the Drawdown Fund, which invests in sustainable businesses.
The product looks and finishes like regular concrete with no difference in cost, he said, adding that the subcontractor on the project called it some of the easiest he’d ever
worked with. Thomas Concrete,
the local supplier, is located near the project site, which saved on transportation costs as well, he said.
The developer mostly works in concrete and steel, so those are the areas where it looks for sustainable options. He added that the company already uses solar energy on its rooftops and looks for sustainable HVAC solutions for existing buildings. The concrete is the biggest focus right now, “because we know it works,” he said.
According to CarbonCure’s website,
the ready-mix product is used in more than 300 concrete plants around the world. There are no CarbonCure producers in New Jersey yet, but Sudler said the company is looking into using the concrete locally.
One hurdle, he said, is that the concrete hasn’t been widely accepted.
“Sudler is interested in using our cases as examples of how it can be successful,” he said, and he’s hoping other companies follow its lead. “We all have a responsibility to reduce emissions, and locking away carbon is a way to do that.” RE
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