In a UK-first, the company’s new umbrella brand aligns its extensive range of proven and trusted concretes to the leading industry standard ratings provided by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Green Construction Board Low Carbon Concrete Routemap.
CEVO stands for ‘concrete evolution’. Through the new system, all of Tarmac’s concrete mixes are graded by strength into bands to meet customer requirements. Like energy ratings provided to consumers buying white goods, the carbon performance of each concrete mix is visually represented by a transparent and easy-to-understand colour-coded benchmark from A++ to G.
The company has also unveiled a new carbon calculator which provides customers with access to concrete carbon footprint data at the click of a button. The tool has been created using Tarmac data benchmarked against the Green Construction Board standard and calculated using the PAS 2050 methodology. It makes comparing products and identifying lower carbon alternatives from the range of concretes in use across the market easier.
Andrew Campling, head of ready-mix concrete performance at Tarmac, said: “As a business, we’ve been developing industry-leading low-carbon concrete technology over many years and have a comprehensive range of tried and tested solutions that perform just as well as traditional concrete in terms of strength, versatility and durability.
“With the introduction of our new CEVO range – which is the first in the UK concrete industry to align with the Green Construction Board’s rating system – together with the new carbon calculator, we’ve listened to our customers and made the process of accessing transparent data and procuring lower carbon concrete as simple as possible. Through the benchmarking, the options to deliver carbon savings are even easier to understand and measure – it really is designed to be specification, made simple.”
Tarmac’s new carbon calculator and CEVO offer coincide with a recent major update to the BS8500 British concrete standard for concrete that is helping to lower the carbon emissions from cement by allowing up to 20% of the cementitious elements of concrete to be limestone filler as well as other traditional replacements. It follows years of rigorous industry-accredited testing and full-scale demonstration projects led by Tarmac.
The business has also developed an alkali-activated material (AACM) system to replace cement in concrete. This Tarmac AACM system has been trialled over the past two years, including by National Highways on a project on the M42 and the Environment Agency and BAM Nuttall in permanent works at the Hexham flood defence scheme. British Standards have just released the first version of a new performance standard to which AACMs can be specified, which will likely accelerate the use of this technology.
Reducing carbon emissions from its products forms a crucial part of Tarmac’s net-zero strategy, which is aligned with the commitment of its parent company, CRH, to reduce absolute CO₂ emissions across the business by 30% by 2030 (from a 2021 baseline) and achieve net zero by 2050.
Tarmac’s roadmap to net zero, which details its plans to reach these targets, can be accessed here.
