LONDON: Saint-Gobain Construction Chemicals is expanding its efforts to deploy new additives for low-carbon cement and concrete. These low-carbon technologies open up tremendous opportunities for co-development with new partners in fast-growing markets and to accelerate Saint-Gobain’s profitable growth in construction chemicals.

Two partnerships illustrate this move:

–     Saint-Gobain has participated in the fund raising of Fortera, a start-up that has developed a process for making low-carbon cement by recycling CO2 emitted during production. Cement production currently accounts for around 8% of the world’s annual CO2 emissions. By investing in Fortera, through NOVA, its venture capital activity, Saint-Gobain is supporting cutting-edge technologies that curb CO2 at source. Founded in 2019, Fortera has developed a groundbreaking technology that integrates with existing cement plants, leveraging their limestone resources. Through the patented ReCarb™ process, Fortera is able to mineralize CO2, reducing direct carbon emissions of existing cement plants by 70%. This paves the way to net zero carbon cement production (scope 1 and 2) when the process is combined with green energy sources.

–     As a shareholder, the Group also supports Ecocem, European leader in low-carbon cement technologies, in its development and marketing of new cement technologies for large-scale application. Its groundbreaking ACT technology, compatible with all supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) has just obtained a European Technical Assessment. Based on published environmental product declarations, the carbon footprint of the ACT product has been assessed to be 70% lower than the carbon footprint* of an average CEM II cement sold within the European market.

These developments are in line with Saint-Gobain’s “Grow & Impact” strategy aiming to both strengthen the Group’s leadership and accelerate its growth by enriching its range of solutions for light and sustainable construction.

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