Cement and concrete sectors contribute significantly to the carbon footprint of the built environment, says Kumar
Oslo-headquartered Xynteo’s Build Ahead Coalition has gathered multiple stakeholders from the construction value chain in India including producers, consumers, financiers and technology providers to accelerate the use of low-carbon building materials
JLL, Godrej Construction, Lodha, JSW Cement, Stichting SED Fund of the Netherlands and Shell India have joined Build Ahead Coalition, a business-led alliance, with the goal to support India in achieving its net-zero targets by 2070.
“With the coalition, through collaboration with other partners, we will be able to significantly reduce the carbon footprint of the built environment and support the Prime Minister’s pledge of net-zero emissions for India by 2070,” said Sandeep Sethi, Managing Director, Work Dynamics – West Asia, JLL.
“We are extremely proud to be a part of Build Ahead to help support the transition towards India achieving a low-carbon future,” he said on 23 Aug 2022, lending support to India’s efforts to accelerate decarbonization.
The coalition is formed to pursue three key goals:
1. Enhance the adoption of low-carbon building materials through increased awareness, defining application-based standards, and developing common definitions of low-carbon materials
2. Improving access to new decarbonization technologies and finance needed to enable manufacturers of building materials to reduce emissions from the production of these building materials
3. Advocating enabling policies to support increased procurement and production of low carbon building materials
“The cement and concrete sectors are critical parts of the construction value chain and contribute significantly to the carbon footprint of the built environment,” added Vipul Kumar, Managing Director, Xynteo.
“Today, the world faces an unprecedented climate crisis, necessitating urgent action to limit global warming as compared to pre-industrial levels. We are proud to launch Build Ahead, bringing together key cement producers, construction companies, technology enablers and financiers.
“Our goal is to accelerate decarbonization across the construction value chain towards net-zero emissions and encourage collaboration between industry players and the broader ecosystem to create measurable impact and support the country to meet its climate change goals.”
Over recent years, the Indian cement sector has made significant progress in adopting ways and practices to reduce carbon emissions toward becoming one of the most energy-efficient sectors in the world.
Yet, the mounting climate change crisis necessitates further efforts to reduce global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius, including emissions from cement, concrete, steel, and other building materials, as well as emissions from the design, use as well as end-of-life phases of the construction and infrastructure sectors.
To achieve net-zero emissions, the whole value chain needs to collectively commit to adopting low-zero carbon building materials.
To achieve this vision, forward-leaning business leaders in the Build Ahead Coalition will work together to support first movers and de-risk investments to scale innovative decarbonization technologies and low-carbon building materials by facilitating better access to diverse sources of enabling finance.
Through collective action and collaboration, Build Ahead endeavors to reduce embodied emissions through accelerating the demand for low-carbon building materials.
“Our goal is to accelerate the construction value chain towards net-zero emissions, by fostering collaboration and thought leadership,” said Nitin Prasad, Chairman of Shell companies in India.
“The Build Ahead coalition aligns with Shell’s Powering Progress strategy. As one of the founding members of the coalition, we hope to work with and assist partners in exploring potential low and zero-carbon technologies.”
Xynteo is a purpose-driven organisation that helps businesses find new ways to grow by shaping their cultures so they think and act differently; creating innovative, regenerative business models to compete and thrive; and helping clients embrace radical cross-sector, cross-border collaboration so they can tackle systems. fiinews.com
