CRH Plc guidance on 2022 performance—to which Americas Materials Solutions and Building Solutions segments comfortably contributed—offers some of the most definitive U.S. and Canadian market aspirations we’ve heard from the company during its 45 years of mining aggregate, milling cement, bagging dry mix, fabricating precast, molding masonry and delivering ready mixed concrete or asphalt this side of the pond. The…
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Organizations whose members and market objectives align closely with those of concrete producers have launched campaigns challenging the most basic of job site safety provisions, or delineating who owns what part of the accident prevention equation. The ASCC Education, Research & Development Foundation is live with www.hardhatstohelmets.org, stating the case for what sponsors view as stronger construction worker protection than…
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We are into a second decade of covering ready mixed and manufactured concrete producer response to construction market catalysts driving Environmental Product Declaration preparation and submittals: The Architecture 2030 Challenge (2012), compelling proof of lower embodied carbon materials or products in project specifications, and the U.S. Green Building Council LEED v4 standard (2014-16), the first broad-based mechanism incentivizing suppliers, producers…
Read MoreMajor industry developments last year did not match the eventful 2021, when a dealmaking flourish put leading admixture, plant equipment and ready mixed or manufactured concrete brands or market stakes on track to change hands. But 2022 served up its share of surprises. A review of the year’s most impactful content from these pages and our companion Concrete Currents weekly…
Read MoreThe U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments this term involving one of the West Coast’s top cement, aggregate and ready mixed concrete players (note Government Affairs, page 11). CalPortland Co. counsel will demonstrate why justices should reverse a Washington State Supreme Court decision shielding International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 174 from liability in a 2017 Seattle plant stunt…
Read MoreThe National Ready Mixed Concrete Association Workforce Development Committee did not sugarcoat the results of its 2021 Mixer Driver Recruitment and Retention Survey. As we noted in a report last month, survey data shows that 28 of every 100 drivers hired in 2021 quit during the year. That placed ready mixed producers 3 points above the national resignation rate the…
Read MoreA hastily conducted first quarter survey spawning the General Services Administration’s Low Embodied Carbon Concrete Standards, noted here in May, set the table for comparably quick, parallel action by the Department of Transportation and Environmental Protection Agency (note Federal Buy Clean Initiative, page 13), plus the Department of Energy (DOE). The latter’s new “Industrial Decarbonization Roadmap” identifies pathways—Energy Efficiency; Industrial…
Read MoreBy Don Marsh A new study, “SMA/CRU Emissions Analysis,” concludes that the output of Steel Manufacturers Association (SMA) members—electric arc furnace (EAF) operators in the U.S.—has a carbon intensity approximately 75 percent lower than that of peers running traditional blast furnaces. The EAF process underpins nearly 100 percent of concrete reinforcing steel and 70 percent of overall tonnage milled in…
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A late-July U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision denies a petition to review a final rule expanding a short-haul exemption and modifying a 30-minute break requirement in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration hours of service regulation. The former action entailed a maximum duty period change from 12 to 14 hours, securing HOS compliance flexibility that National…
Read MoreOur cover story subject has hit the ground running since its official launch from an early-2022, $775 million deal uniting Boral Resources, North American fly ash top gun, and Green Cement Inc., Texas-centric developer of PozzoSlag supplementary cementitious material and PozzoCem primary binder. We catch South Jordan, Utah-based Eco Material Technologies Inc. at an unfolding inflection point. In a span…
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