González, who has served as GCCA Vice-President since 2018, succeeds outgoing GCCA President Jan Jenisch. CEO of Cemex since 2014; González joined the company in 1989 and has led several operational regions and corporate functions throughout his career.
“It is a great honour to be President of the GCCA, particularly as we enter this ‘decade to deliver,’ a period during which we must accelerate our decarbonisation efforts,” said Fernando A. González. “My number one priority as the new President of the GCCA is to collaborate closely with governments and industry to evolve the regulatory framework in ways that promote a more circular, lower-carbon economy.”
The priorities for González during his two-year term include:
• Encouraging regulation that diverts municipal and industrial waste from landfills to waste-to-energy solutions, including substituting fossil fuels in cement kilns.
• Promoting building codes and norms that allow the extensive adoption of lower-carbon cement and concrete products.
• Establishing market-driving carbon pricing mechanisms incentivising decarbonisation and investment in carbon reduction technologies.
• Seek funding and alliances to develop new technologies that reduce carbon emissions in cement manufacturing and accelerate the development and scaling of carbon capture, utilisation, and storage technologies.
González recently spoke at the United Nations General Assembly’s Private Sector Forum and urged the public and private sectors to collaborate more closely to develop the regulatory ecosystem so that the cement industry can reach its full potential as a contributor to a carbon-neutral society.
