The World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WBCSD) has released a report indicating cement manufacturers had stepped up efforts to reducing their carbon emissions.

Under the Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI), representing the collective effort of 18 leading cement companies from around the world, the report “Cement Industry Energy and CO2 Performance: ‘Getting the Numbers Right’” documents emissons and energy performance of participating companies .

The Getting the Numbers Right (GNR) system is a sector-wide global information database that provides accurate, verified data on the cement industry’s CO2 emissions and energy performance.

In addition to CSI members, CEMBUREAU, the European Cement Association, collects information from non-CSI cement plants in Europe, ensuring nearly complete coverage of all cement installations there.

Cement production by companies participating in the GNR initiative icreased by 53 per cent from 1990 to 2006, whereas absolute net CO2 emissions increased more slowly, by only 35 per cent, showing evidence of a decoupling of production and related emissions.

To date, the GNR is the system with the widest data coverage in the cement industry, providing aggregated data on more than 800 individual cement facilities worldwide over more than 100 countries.

The database currently includes data for the years 1990, 2000, 2005 and 2006. (Data-collection started with 2005, but information for the years 1990 and 2000 were also collected to provide a baseline for comparisons.) Program participants from the CSI began independent third-party assurance of their CO2 emissions information with 2006-data.

The database is independently managed by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), who provide data security to manage antitrust and confidentiality concerns. Participants and interested parties can only see aggregated data on global and regional performance.

“GNR shows that an effective measuring, reporting and verification (MRV) system can be developed and managed by an industry. Furthermore, reliable and up-to-date emissions data is critical for emissions benchmark-setting in a sector like cement,” says Dr. Howard KIee, CSI project director.

The GNR system therefore represents an important tool to help move from discussion about climate change to credible, measurable action.

“While we have very good data coverage in some countries (notably in Europe, North America and Latin America), the CSI would like to see other cement companies and trade associations participate in the GNR system,” states Dr. Klee.

“We have made a good start with nearly 50% of the data from India, but are still not well represented in China and the CIS countries. The better the information, the better policy-makers and industry will be able to understand future performance potential and design policies that deliver effective mitigation.”

More information on the WBCSD’s Cement Sustainability Initiative is available on: www.wbcsdcement.org.

Download the report directly from: www.wbcsdcement.org/co2data.

Source: WBCSD

Image credit: Oskay/ Flickr