The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has officially announced its grant selections to improve sustainability across the construction sector. Markedly enough, the announcement comes shortly after the EPA launched its “Reducing Embodied Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Construction Materials and Products” grant program. Anyway, under the given development, the agency has picked five different associations, with NRMCA leading the charge. According to certain reports, the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association (NRMCA) was markedly picked for a $9.63 million grant. Hence, this grant, in essence, will fund a five-year project managed by NRMCA and supported by its Build With Strength initiative, which includes a team of concrete experts to educate the architectural and engineering communities on designing and specifying low-carbon concrete. More on the same would reveal how the stated five-year project will increase quantity and robustness of ready mixed concrete Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) by providing grants to producers for the purpose of creating EPDs from an extra 3,000 plants (up from 1,500 currently). Furthermore, NRMCA’s plans around here are rooted in providing data quality management oversight and training, as well as education for producers. This it will do through training of EPD verifiers and validation of to 500 EPD specialists through an online education system. On top of that, the association will also try and enhance existing low-carbon concrete tool and host five low-carbon concrete training workshops per year, something that is penciled in to run for five years. Such a feature, on its part, should help the association accelerate the overarching goal to cut the carbon footprint of concrete in half by 2028, while simultaneously making sure that NRMCA reaches its carbon neutrality goal by 2045, five years ahead of its original timeline.
The whole effort will further see NRMCA collaborating with various partners, including state ready-mixed concrete associations, material suppliers, and academic institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Not just that, it will also get the association to improve the Product Category Rules (PCRs) for concrete, and data availability for critical inputs like cementitious materials, aggregates, and admixtures.
The next association set to be a part of the given initiative is the National Stone, Sand & Gravel Association (NSSGA), who will receive $9.65 million grant. Going by the available details, the grant will enable NSSGA to provide aggregates industry with essential resources for robustly producing, as well as releasing Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). Apart from that, it will facilitate the establishment of guidelines on best management practices so to reduce CO2 emissions. The promised cash injection will also help NSSGA enhance the industry’s capacity to sequester CO2.
“Thank you to the EPA and their staff for this important funding. We look forward to working together to enhance the transparency and availability of environmental impact data within the aggregates industry,” said Michael Johnson, president and CEO of NSSGA. “The unwavering support from our members, industry partners, and 23 state associations has been instrumental in securing this grant and will be crucial as we move forward to accomplish the initiatives. This builds on our industry’s robust efforts to be a leader in the carbon solution as we continually protect the environment and sustainably produce critically needed materials.”
For the remaining spots, EPA would select the likes of the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute (PCI), the National Precast Concrete Association (NPCA), and the American Concrete Pipe Association (ACPA) to receive a $9.95 million grant. This particular grant will focus on updating the associations’ existing product category rule (PCR), producing specific environmental product declarations (EPDs), developing an EPD generator, and providing training and support to member companies. Another detail worth a mention is rooted in the way each association will have a chance to use its portion of the grant to defray the cost for its producer members and create or update their EPDs in the context of precast concrete products.
