NRMCA Participates in White House Concrete Innovation Summit

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) invited stakeholders in the cement and concrete industry for what was titled a Concrete Innovation Summit. There were about 80 attendees, including CEOs from the cement and concrete industry and various stakeholders from companies involved in innovations that reduce the carbon footprint of concrete. The group was addressed by Arati Prabhakar, director of OSTP; Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg; Brenda Mallory, chair of the Council on Environmental Quality and Janet McCabe, deputy administrator of the EPA. The focus was on the considerable investment by the Biden/Harris administration on infrastructure and addressing climate change. Several available funding opportunities were outlined.

A panel titled Challenges and Opportunities to Near-Term Commercialization and Adoption was moderated by Andres Clarens of the OSTP. Panelists included Jennie Romer, deputy assistant administrator, EPA; Miles Haladay of TheNewConcreteFund and Bryan Fisher with RMI. Ms. Romer discussed four major initiatives of the EPA toward climate change, from quantifying the environmental impact of construction activity that resulted in recent grant awards to support reducing the carbon footprint of industry (NRMCA is a recipient) labeling program and establishing limits for products. Support of innovators of low carbon materials for cement and concrete to scale up and gain acceptance was also discussed.

The next panel on Accelerating Emerging Innovation and Practices was moderated by Robert Hampshire, principal deputy assistant secretary, DOT. Panelists included John Harvey with the University of California at Davis who discussed a “Lab to Slab” initiative to move innovative concepts and materials into practice; Carolyn Snyder, deputy assistant secretary, DOE, who outlined various sources of funding to reduce industrial emissions impacting climate change. Ms Snyder announced that the DOE Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office (IEDO) will create a Cement and Concrete Center of Excellence to accelerate the development and adoption of novel low-carbon material technologies. U.S. National Laboratories can receive up to $9 million annually through an upcoming competitive call to organize and lead the effort. Nancy Daubenberger, commissioner, Minnesota DOT, discussed the various initiatives of state highway agencies and MN DOT to accelerate the use of lower carbon materials in transportation infrastructure, including the tests on various low carbon materials in sections of the MN Road program that exposes experimental pavements to a section of Interstate 94 and low volume traffic conditions. Leonidas Canellopoulos, Titan Cement, addressed the various sustainable initiatives by the cement industry, some supported by DOE funding, and indicated that government regulatory burdens should be addressed to achieve some of the goals.

Closing remarks were by Justina Gallegos, deputy director of OSTP who thanked the group for their efforts; Representative Valerie Foushee (NC District 04) who is a champion for funding for infrastructure and climate change initiatives; and David Turk, deputy secretary, DOE, who emphasized the various sources of DOE funding toward climate change and welcomed suggestions from the group on whether the direction of DOE funding was appropriate or needed a change in focus.

The summit concluded with three breakout roundtable sessions:

• Building a Coordinated Demand Signal
• Accelerating the Innovation and Commercialization Pipeline
• Enabling Support of Innovation Ecosystems

NRMCA Executive Vice President of Engineering Colin Lobo participated in the third breakout session which discussed the types of actions needed to accelerate the adoption of performance-aligned specifications to support low carbon concrete. It was emphasized that while there is progress among public agencies in this evolution, prescriptive limitations are not removed. Significant reduction in low carbon concrete is possible with the use of industrial byproducts, and existing traditional materials and regulations should be minimized to permit the use of recycled materials that can be processed for use in concrete. Investment in innovative materials is necessary, but it should be recognized that there could be some time before these scale up and gain acceptance. The perception of risk by engineers and designers to incorporating innovative decarbonized materials in projects could be addressed by insurance, education, more rapid standardization, and pilot and demonstration projects. The group also identified information barriers in the concrete value-chain that could be addressed by the government.

For more information on the summit, contact Colin Lobo at clobo@nrmca.org.