Heidelberg Materials’ journey to net-zero
Heidelberg Materials is investing in multiple projects to achieve its ambitious target of reducing its CO2 emissions by 47 per cent by 2030. From its first carbon capture and storage (CCUS) project at the Brevik plant in Norway almost 20 years ago, the cement producer has developed several CCS projects using a range of technologies.
By S Federhen and A Burns, Heidelberg Materials, Germany.
Figure 1: by 2030 Heidelberg Materials wants to reduce its CO2 emissions by 47 per cent when compared
with the 1990 baseline (Source: Heidelberg Materials)
For decades Heidelberg Materials has worked hard on driving down its CO2 emissions, with a focus on improving energy efficiency, replacing fossil fuels with waste-derived fuels and continuously lowering the clinker factor in cement. While these levers are still extremely important, more solutions are needed.
Therefore, as part of its “Beyond 2020” strategy, Heidelberg Materials announced in May 2022 the ambitious goal of accelerating carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), investing further in various carbon capture technologies, and thereby capturing a total of 10Mt of CO2 as early as 2030. Investments in CCUS are also required to enable Heidelberg Materials to achieve the challenging reduction target of 400kg CO2/t of cementitious material by 2030.
