LafargeHolcim will begin to build the first carbon capture facility at its Carboneras plant in Almería, Spain, at the end of the year. It will use British Carbon Clean technology and the captured carbon will be used to improve the agricultural performance of the greenhouses in the province.

The installation will initially capture 10 per cent of the 700,000t of CO2 emissions by the plant, but the cement producers plans to capture 100 per cent eventually and equip its other four cement plants in Spain with similar systems as part of its plans to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

In terms of the Carboneras project, ECCO2 – a joint venture of Carbon Clean and the Almeria-based Sistemas de Calor – will market the CO2 to farmers in Almería, where it will enrich the environment of the greenhouses prepared for it.

"Currently five per cent of greenhouses are prepared to enrich their indoor environment with carbon, either to reach the level of the outside or to be higher, as appropriate, in order to increase crops, which can grow by 10 per cent; if all the greenhouses in Almería were prepared, something that requires a very small investment, they would earn around 2500m more each year ”, comments Antonio Cambil, executive director of Sistemas de Calor.