Second only

to water
Cementing good
environmental
practices for
concrete
by Prof. Koji Sakai,
Chair of ISO/TC 71/SC 8,
Environmental management for
concrete and concrete structures

oncrete is essential to the creation

of the infrastructure and buildings
that form the basis of human socioeconomic activity. It is an extremely simple material consisting of aggregate, cement,
water and admixtures, materials that are
naturally found in great abundance one
of the main reasons why concrete is such
an important construction material.
However, the quality of concrete
is not always easy to maintain, as it is
the result of a chemical reaction between
cement (itself a product of the high-temperature combustion of limestone and
clay) and water. The aggregate (sand
and gravel), which makes up 70% of
the volume may be of uneven quality,
and as concrete is produced in factories before being transported as a semifinished product to construction sites,
quality control may be limited.
Global production of cement in
2007 was 2,77 billion tons. From this,
the current annual production of concrete is estimated to be approximately 15 billion tons (although no precise
ISO Focus October 2008

23

Main Focus
statistical data are available), making it
the second-most used material on the
Earth after water.
The environmental impacts related
to concrete are considerable. In cement
production, large amounts of carbon
dioxide are emitted from the materials
compound elements and fuel sources.
The transportation of these compound
elements and concrete products also consumes large amounts of energy, generating still more carbon emissions and
other pollution.

Concrete is essential
to the creation of the
infrastructure and buildings
that form the basis of
human socioeconomic
activity.
Production of concrete is expected to increase several-fold in the future.
Considering the unlikelihood of any
new construction material emerging to
replace it, the construction sector must
ascertain the extent of the environmental impacts it poses and develop technologies to reduce these.
ISO has already produced the ISO
14000 family, which is one of the most
widely used series of environmental management standards. The standards, developed by ISO/TC 207, Environmental man-

About the author

Koji Sakai is a
professor of
Kagawa University, Japan.
He chairs ISO/
TC 71/SC 8,
Environmental
management for
concrete and
concrete structures, and the
International Federation for Structural
Concrete (fib) Commission 3 on environmental aspects of design and construction, and the Japan Concrete Institute Committee on minimization of
global warming substances and wastes
in the concrete sector.

24

ISO Focus October 2008

agement, include ones that provide basic

requirements for environmental product
labels and declarations, and for carrying
out lifecycle assessments.
In a similar vein, and following on this lead, ISO/TC 59, Building
construction, SC 14, Design life, and
SC 17, Sustainability in building construction, have respectively developed
ISO15686-6, Buildings and constructed assets Service life planning Part 6:
Procedures for considering environmental impacts, and ISO 21930, Sustainability in building construction Environmental declaration of building products
(see page 11).

A solid approach
ISO 15686-6 presents procedures
for the assessment of environmental
impacts, while ISO 21930 provides rules
for the implementation of environmental
declarations for building products. The
concrete sector realized their value, particularly given the industrys considerable use of resources and energy. It was
clear however, that the sector needed to
develop their own environmental standards, in order to ensure that these would
apply to the practicalities of this specific
industry. The aim was thus to assess the
environmental impacts caused by construction projects and to work continuously towards their reduction.
ISO/TC 71, Concrete, reinforced
concrete, and pre-stressed concrete; thus
decided to establish subcommittee SC 8,
Environmental management for concrete
and concrete structures (EMCC). The
subcommittee was approved by ISO in
February 2008 and its first meeting was
held in Los Angeles, USA in March 2008,
where it was agreed to develop standards
on the following topics:
general principles;
preparation of inventory data and system boundaries;
constituents and concrete production;
environmental design of concrete structures;
execution of concrete structures;
operation of concrete structures;
end-of-life phase including recycling
of concrete structures;
labels and declarations.

Concrete is the secondmost used material

on the Earth after water.
The standards will provide a platform and a set of common rules for the
evaluation of environmental impacts
and benefits of concrete and concrete
structures in an objective and transparent manner. Existing ISO environmental standards will naturally provide the
basis of these EMCC standards.