Earlier this month, Build With Strength Director, Building Innovations, Justin McCain met a group of Austin, TX, engineers to promote concrete for city projects. He demonstrated how they can achieve their sustainability goals through consistent specifications and partnering with ready mixed concrete producers early in the design process. Austin plans to require Environmental Product Declarations for projects in 2025 and McCain provided feedback with NRMCA benchmarks and reasonable reduction goal estimations for officials' considerations.
He said he aimed to send a clear message: materials cannot be considered sustainable if they are not also resilient. Concrete is the material of choice because of its long-term durability and unique capability to accomplish the sustainability goals of projects. He also introduced the available services offered by the BWS team to the design-build community, including specification reviews, life cycle assessments and concrete design assistance. The meetings provided valuable insight for the engineers along with guidance on how adopting performance-based specifications will maximize the ready mixed concrete industry’s ability to deliver achievable results.
For more information, contact Justin McCain at jmccain@nrmca.org.
National Ready Mixed Concrete Association