Internal materials sourcing backs LEED Gold for Lafarge NA headquarters

Sources: Lafarge North America, Chicago; CP staff

Lafarge North America has attained LEED for Commercial Interiors Gold certification at its recently occupied Chicago headquarters, the rating partly reflecting specification of internally procured product: reception area backdrop of Elburn, Ill.-quarried limestone, plus tile and countertops of Ductal ultra-high performance concrete.

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Titan Concrete first East Coast player with EPD for ready mixed

Titan Concrete EPD

Officials at Titan Concrete announced late last year their company is the first ready mixed producer in the state of Florida and second in the United States to produce environmental product declarations (EPDs) using the Product Category Rules (PCR) of the University of Washington/College of the Built Environment-hosted Carbon Leadership Forum.

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Life-cycle data specialist takes helm at CSHub

Jeremy

An engineer who studies materials’ economic and environmental implications, recycling and end-of-life recovery, Jeremy Gregory has been named executive director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology-hosted Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSHub), succeeding Hamlin Jennings.

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Environmental Product Declarations workshop dovetails ASTM C09 committee meetings

Sources: ASTM International, West Conshohocken, Pa.; CP staff

“An Introduction to Product Category Rules (PCR), Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) and Other Aspects of Sustainable Process and Resilient Materials” will be held December 8 at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville (Fla.) Riverfront, host venue of ASTM Committee C09 on Concrete and Concrete Aggregates standards development meetings.

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Global cement group guides Environmental Product Declarations for plain concrete

Sources: World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), Geneva; CP staff

WBCSD Cement Sustainability Initiative’s (CSI) new Product Category Rules (PCR) for unreinforced concrete offer producers a common methodology to prepare Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for their mixes. CSI membership includes all multinational companies with integrated North American operations: Argos, CRH, Cemex, GCC, Heidelberg, Holcim, Lafarge, Taiheiyo, Titan and Votorantim.

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NRMCA set to verify Environmental Product Declarations per new LEED, IgCC versions

Source: National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, Silver Spring, Md.

NRMCA has become an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) Program Operator, a designation enabling it to help members meet new requirements in LEED v4, International Green Construction Code (IgCC) and the Architecture 2030 Challenge for Products. EPDs are third-party verified reports published by product manufacturers that provide quality assured and comparable information regarding the environmental performance of their product.

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Command Alkon ‘Replenishes’ concrete, bulk materials product suites

Sources: CP staff; Command Alkon Inc., Birmingham, Ala.

COMMANDoptimize, offering real-time fleet and plant management to improve ready mixed concrete dispatch operations’ efficiency and profitability, was center stage at the 2011 Command Alkon Customer Conference.

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Raw materials market factors drive Grace admixture price boost

Source: Grace Construction Products, Cambridge, Mass. Effective January, Grace will implement price increases averaging 5 percent across North American concrete and masonry product lines. Pricing for certain products may increase by more than 10 percent. The company attributes the bumps to continued demand for chemical streams globally, which has put pressure on the cost and availability of raw materials used…

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