Special Activity Group 8 report to the Technical Council, Corfu, October 2010
The reduction of greenhouse gases has become an issue of global importance. A red flag is now raised against the socioeconomic activities which have consumed resources and energy on a massive scale, and the market principles of mass production and mass consumption that have prevailed since the Industrial Revolution are now approaching an end. Human socioeconomic activities are meaningful only when the globe is in a sound condition, and human survival itself is vulnerable if the global climate drastically changes and loses its rhythm.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) explicitly underlined in its Fourth Assessment Report the critical situation of and responses to global warming. It is necessary for humankind to halve anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050, thereby keeping the global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius. Taking future economic growth by the developing countries into consideration, developed countries must reduce their emissions by 80% or more. The above is what was agreed upon during the 2009 G8 Summit held in L'Aquila. Although severe negotiations are expected in the future between developed and developing countries concerning greenhouse gas emissions reduction quotas, the objective of humankind as a whole is clear and it is the duty of the present generation to achieve such quotas for the benefit of future generations.
As reduction of greenhouse gases is a task for all sectors of all nations, the concrete sector is no exception. Amongst all industries, the construction industry which includes the concrete sector, uses an enormous amount of resources and energy due to the nature of its activities in constructing the infrastructure and buildings upon which human socioeconomic activities depend. The concrete sector is probably emitting CO2 at a level of 5 billion tons per year globally today. Considering that the total amount of CO2 emission originating from fossil fuels is about 29 billion tons, this value is extremely large. The concrete sector, based on such estimation, must meet its social accountability through the advancement of innovative technological development for the reduction of CO2 emissions. If it fails to do so, the sector may face a drastic decrease in the scope of its activities. The concrete sector must therefore make further efforts to realize its sustainability by adopting a more global viewpoint.
On the other hand, concrete provides great benefits to society, such as safety, security, longevity, thermal mass and storage, aesthetics, use of byproducts etc. That’s a reason why concrete is the world’s most used construction material, after water.
At the time of commencement of its activities in 1998, the International Federation for Structural Concrete (fib) established its Commission 3: Environmental aspects of design and construction. Although at that time the environmental issues in concrete sector was not so “trendy,” fib was already aware more than ten years ago of the necessity to undertake work on environmental issues relating to the concrete sector, demonstrating that in this respect, fib had foresight. Environment aspects are the most important element of sustainability. So far Commission 3 has published 6 bulletins. Currently its 5 task groups (TG) are working on the development of state-of-the art guidance for construction professionals and a new bulletin is expected in the near future. This shows that Commission 3 has yielded a steady flow of valuable results. These activities have contributed to dissemination of knowledge on the environmental aspects of concrete and concrete structures.
However, it is now necessary for fib to reinforce these achievements by placing ‘sustainability’, which is becoming an increasingly important issue world wide, at the core of its activities, and to explicitly inform society of this.
Commission 3 will continue its work. But in addition, based on decisions made at the 2009 Oslo fib Technical Council, fib has launched a new special activity group (SAG 8) for pushing on with forward-looking sustainability actions to be implemented in collaboration with all of fib’s commissions.
Since then, fib SAG 8 has discussed the actions to be taken, reaching the conclusion that fib should declare its strategic goals for improving the sustainability of concrete sector. In 2010 October, fib Technical Council approved the fib sustainability initiative:
fib will proceed its activities on the basis of this sustainability initiative.