Pan-United Corporation is supplying 360,000m3 of carbon dioxide (CO2) mineralised concrete over a 2.5-year period for the Tuas Port project in Singapore.
This specialised low-carbon concrete is a building material for the berths and stacking yards at the Phase One container berth project being carried out by PSA Corporation.
Upon completion in early 2024, Tuas Port Phase One will effectively become a man-made carbon sink that prevents the emission of over 113.8 million kg of CO2 from entering the atmosphere. Pan-United is equivalent to planting 1.9 million tree seedlings or removing 24,500 cars from the road. When fully completed in the 2040s, Tuas Port will be the world’s largest fully automated port capable of handling 65 million TEUs (20-ft equivalent units) annually.
May Ng, CEO of Pan-United, said: “We are delighted at PSA’s commitment to the use of our CO2 mineralised concrete for its Tuas Port Phase One project. It will contribute to PSA’s efforts to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. We will continue to champion sustainability in Singapore and globally, and work alongside fellow industry leaders in our journey to reach new frontiers in decarbonising Singapore’s built environment.”
Unlike operational carbon emitted from buildings in use, embodied carbon is emitted throughout the construction process before a building is completed, i.e. from the manufacture of building materials right up to onsite work on a new building project. This fact makes it possible, during the design stage, to choose building materials and methods that can lower embodied carbon. Once a building is operational, carbon emissions can only be reduced from energy used in lighting, power and air-conditioning.
Ng added: “So far, greening initiatives have focused largely on reducing operational carbon after the building is completed. Yet the best results can be achieved as early as the design stage if builders opt for low-carbon materials such as CO2 mineralised concrete, to incur the lowest possible embodied carbon footprint for a building even before it comes in use.”
The production of CO2 mineralised concrete is a carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) technology that permanently embeds industrial waste CO2 as a mineral in concrete, making it a carbon sink for embodied carbon emissions.
