Song Zhiping, President of the World Cement Association (WCA), urged the global cement industry to continue its efforts towards carbon neutrality, but also to advance digitalisation, in a keynote speech at the WCA Open Day this month.
The WCA President called on cement manufacturers, design and research institutes to take joint action to reduce CO2, emissions. He cited the example of one WCA member, Anhui Conch, which installed Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS) equipment at its plant in Baymashan in eastern China. The implementation of the project made it possible to separate from other components of the gas mixture and purify 50,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year. Anhui Conch then sells the captured CO2 to industrial customers. CNBM began using CO2 emitted from cement plants to feed plants in greenhouses. On three newly built production lines at CNBM's cement plants in Tai'an, Zunyi and Zhejiang, the company has applied new technologies that help reduce CO2 emissions.
Song Zhiping emphasized the importance of expanding the use of digital technologies, noting that the introduction of digital and smart technologies has undoubtedly helped not only reduce the use of labor resources and improve product quality, but also reduce the costs of manufacturers. He noted that digitalization has transformed increasingly online sales and cited CNBM's “On-line Drive Platform” initiative to demonstrate that the cement industry is keeping pace with the global digitalization trend.
