WASHINGTON, D.C.—The cement industry has a new tool to expand its sustainable manufacturing efforts. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced this week that an Energy Performance Indicator (EPI) is now available for cement manufacturers.

The EPI scores the energy efficiency of a single cement plant and allows the plant to compare its performance to that of the entire industry. The EPI is an outgrowth of the EPA’s Energy Star Industrial Focus program. The tool is intended to help cement plant operators identify opportunities to improve energy efficiency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, conserve conventional energy supplies and reduce production costs.

The cement industry EPI was developed by the EPA in cooperation with PCA, technical support from Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, and validated at several cement plants. The tool scores a plant from 1 to 100. A score of 75 or higher deems the plant as energy efficient.

“This program reflects the cement industry’s commitment to sustainable manufacturing and to working with the EPA to improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions,” Andy O’Hare, PCA vice president of regulatory affairs, said. “Although a voluntary program, nearly half of U.S. cement companies are participating in the Energy Star Industrial Focus program.”

For more than a decade, the cement industry has been dedicated to manufacturing a superior product while continuously improving the environmental, energy and health and safety performance of the manufacturing process.

For example, earlier this year, PCA members adopted a voluntary goal to improve energy efficiency—as measured by total Btu per unit of cementitious product—by 20 percent from a 1990 baseline by 2020."

The U.S. cement industry was among the first major industries to tackle the issue of climate change, and it has remained at the forefront of developing policies and improving the manufacturing process. In 2000, the industry created a way to measure carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and by the year 2020, the industry plans to voluntarily reduce CO2 emissions by 10 percent below the 1990 baseline. The industry received EPA’s coveted Climate Protection Award for its climate change efforts in 2000.

Additional information on the industry’s sustainable manufacturing efforts is included in PCA’s 2006 Report on Sustainable Manufacturing—http://www.cement.org/smreport06/

About PCA
Based in Skokie, Ill., the Portland Cement Association represents cement companies in the United States and Canada. It conducts market development, engineering, research, education, and public affairs programs.

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