Quantifying the Sustainability

of Green Concrete using

Life Cycle Assessment

Christian R. Orozco
Assistant Professor, University of the Philippines Diliman
Vice-President, American Concrete Institute Philippines Chapter

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 Impact of Concrete Production and Utilization

Concrete is the most used construction material in the world with

over 25 billion tons placed each year (World Business Council for Sustainable Development 2009).
Key Impacts (Marinkovic, 2013)
• large consumption of natural resources
• large consumption of energy
• large emissions of greenhouse gasses:
CO2, SO2
• large amount of construction and
demolition waste produced.

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 Cement Production
In 2018, worldwide cement production is around
4.1 billion tons. It is expected that 45% more
cement will be produced by 2050 than what is
presently produced. (Nwankwo, 2020)

Cement releases approximately one ton of CO2

for each ton of cement produced (Al-Monsour et
al, 2020)

Around 5-8% of the manmade greenhouse

gas emissions originate from cement
production (Sakir et al, 2020)

Al-Monsour, 2020
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 Sustainability in Concrete
Performance based design to
consider durability, sustainability
provisions in codes

Design and
Analysis
Low-energy
Optimum reuse and consumption
Demolition
recycling of waste (End-of-Life)
Materials materials, use of
concrete waste materials,
promote recycling,
blended cements

Protection &
Construction
Maintenance

regular inspection and good construction

maintenance, good techniques, qualified
and appropriate personnel on-site
techniques

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 • Local availability of
Selection Criteria materials.
for Green • Embodied energy of
materials.
Materials • % of recycled/waste
materials used.
• Rapidly renewable
materials.
• Contribution in energy
efficiency of building.
• Recyclability of materials.
• Durability
• Environmental Impact

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 Sustainability in Cement Production
Energy Improving energy efficiency involves the implementation of the
best available technologies whenever it is possible (IFC, World
Efficiency Bank 2020):

Alternative fuels normally include the residues of agricultural

Alternative
and non- agricultural biomass, petroleum-based wastes,
Fuels various wastes, and hazardous chemical wastes. (Miller et al.,
2018)

Cement Calcination process (clinker production) represents about

58% of the total impact of cement production on climate. Use
Replacements/
of blended cement from by-products greatly reduces this
Use of Blended impact (Nicoara et al., 2020; Nwankwo et al., 2020; Pacewska & Wilińska, 2020; Samad
Cements & Shah, 2017)

Carbon CCS does not reduce the production of CO2 separation,

Capture and capture and storage of carbon dioxide prevent CO2 from
Storage being released. (Scrivener et al., 2018; Salas et al., 2016).

Other Strategies: self-healing concrete, geopolymer concrete, use of recycled concrete as

aggregates
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Meet performance requirements of the owner designers contractor and
producer
+
Minimize Energy and CO2 Footprint; Minimize Potable Water Use
Minimize Waste ; Increase Use of Recycled Content

• Partial replacement of
cement: natural materials
with less processing, waste
materials
• Full replacement of
cement: Geopolymerization

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 Cement Replacements
Industrial Process Natural Sources Agricultural Wastes

Fly Ash Metakaolin Palm Oil Fuel Ash

Bottom Ash Volcanic Ash Rice Husk Ash
Silica Fume
Ground Granulated Municipal Waste
Blast Furnace Slag
Limestone Dust Glass Powder

Literature sources:

Nicoara et al., 2020,

Nwankwo et al., 2020,
Pacewska & Wilińska, 2020,
Samad & Shah, 2017
Tangtermsirikul et al, 2016

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Fly Ash Fly Ash

By-product generated from coal-fired power plants. It is a fine, volatile powder

emitted from chimneys alongside flue gases. Fly ash is the most globally
generated and widely used supplementary cementitious material (Hemalatha et
al., 2016); Global Production: 777 million tons (Sakir et al, 2020)

Benefits Challenge
Use for mass concrete, enhances
strength, segregation, ease of pumping, Delays early age compressive strength,
potential for carbon capture, enhance carbonation, sensitivity of curing
expansion of concrete
Nguyen 2019, Tangtermsirikul

Nadeem et al, 2013

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Fly Ash Bottom Ash

Bottom ash (BA) is a by-product generated from the burning of coal, biomass, or
solid wastes. Unlike FA, BA (from coal and biomass) consists of heavier particles
and more heavy metals that deposit at the bottom of the furnace (Menéndez et
al., 2014).

Benefits
Challenge
Potential for strength The leaching behavior, needs grinding for
improvement; readily suitable for better performance, heavier particles,
sand replacement higher porosity, irregular properties
Gooi, 2020 Singh et al., 2020

Grinding of CBA to replace cement

in mortar and concrete was
performed in 1986 (Kohno and
Komatsu,1986)

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Fly Ash Rice Husk Ash

RHA is the combustion residue from rice husks, which are the outer layer that accumulates
during de-husking of paddy rice. Every tonne of paddy rice can yield around 200 kg of husk,
which produces about 40 kg of ash after combustion; Potential Production: 30 million
metric tons (Muthukrishnan et al., 2019)

Benefits Challenge
Better resistance against chloride Consistency, uniformity, quality control,
and penetration sulphate Poor compressive strength at elevated
resistance attacks temperature
Al-Monsur, 2020 Al-Monsur, 2020

Rorat et al 2019
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Fly Ash Silica Fume

Silica fume (SF) is a by-product of the production of silicon and ferrosilicon alloys
in electric arc furnaces through the carbothermic reduction of quartz. In recent
times, the estimated global production of SF is 1.5 Mt per year (Paris et al., 2016).

Benefits
High strength concrete, Improves bonding
between cement paste and aggregates,
reduces permeability and develops
reliable ASR Mitigation
(Imbabi et al., 2012)

Challenge
Cost, reduces workability of
concrete mixtures
Saha, 2018
Al-Monsur, 2020
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Fly Ash Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag

Ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS) is a by-product of steel and/or iron

production process . In 2014, 7.2 million tons of blast-furnace slag was produced
only in the USA; the domestic sale of granulated blast furnace slag was about
$175 million in the USA in that year (Sakir et al., 2020)

Benefits
High replacement (>50%), CO2
emission reduction, improves
compressive strength and reduces
the heat of hydration
(Sakir et al., 2020)

Challenge

Cracking at early age,

shrinkage of slag concrete,
requires higher pH for hydration Scrivener, 2018
Al-Monsur, 2020

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Sample Mix Designs

Influences of different types of fly ash and confinement on performances of expansive mortars and concretes (2019). Thuy Bich Thi
Nguyen, Rachot Chatchawan, Warangkana Saengsoy, Somnuk Tangtermsirikul, Takafumi Sugiyama

Sample Concrete Mix

Design Data for f’c 30MPa
at 56 days (Source Prof. Dr.
Somnuk)

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Quantifying Impact of Cement Replacement
LCA is a methodology for evaluating the
environmental loads of processes and
products during their life cycle. According to
ISO standards 14040–14043 (ISO, 2006a), LCA
consists of four steps: (1) goal and scope
definition, (2) creating the life cycle inventory
(LCI), (3) assessing the environmental impact
(LCIA ) and (4) interpreting the results

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 Life Cycle Analysis: Data Sources

In order to facilitate the LCI phase, many databases have been developed. These
include public national or regional databases, academic databases, industrial
databases and commercial databases (Khasreen et al., 2009).

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The Challenge

Emissions, Increasing Demand

Impacts for Cement reduce cement

Cement How
Replacements sustainable?
More disposal Industrial wastes
utilize
sites required (by-products)
varying
characteristics

In a number of Asian countries, particularly in Southeast Asia, the

sustainability of the actual cement substitutes currently in use has not bee
thoroughly studied and quantified. There is a need to incorporate
sustainability consideration into policies concerning cement replacing
materials to make them more comprehensive and informed.
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Conceptual Framework

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Methods Implementation

Repair-free cost analysis (NPV)

Concrete mix designs

Sources of SCMs
Processing Data
IS0 14040
• Energy/Fuel
Guidelines,
Transportation Data Monte-Carlo
Process-based
Cost Data Analysis
LCA

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Life Cycle Analysis

Goal and Functional Unit:

Scope 1 cubic meter concrete
Definitions Cradle-to-gate LCA

Inventory
Analysis

ReCiPe Midpoint Method

Impact
Midpoint impacts are regarded as more precise
Assessment and containing a greater quantity of scientific
data. (A. P. Gursel & Ostertag, 2019)

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Software Screening

Tool Database ISO LCIA Statistical

14040 Analysis

GaBi O O O O O
OpenLCA O X X X O
SimaPro O O O O O
Umberto O O O O O

Four widely used software packages were screened in order to determine

the best application for concrete life cycle assessment. The analysis was
conducted on the basis of the capability to implement the ISO standard,
database integration, user friendliness, structure, and conformance to the
ISO standard.

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 LCA using SimaPro
Case Study: A dataset that represents the production of 20 MPa ready-mix concrete is used
for the purpose of testing the software’s functionality. 20 MPa concrete is intended for
residential use.

The following are the details of the concrete used:

• Density: 2,309 kg/m³. Functional Unit: for 1 m³ of concrete
• Concrete Mix Proportion: 950 kg of coarse aggregates (gravel), 164 kg of water, 237
kg of cement, 940 kg of sand, 18 kg of fly ash, and 0.7 kg of Admixtures
• The 20 MPa concrete was initially simulated as a practice of the software’s
functionality and was compared with 30 and 35 MPa concrete. This simulation uses
EcoInvent Database.
• Impact Method Used: ReCiPe 2016 v1.1 midpoint method, Hierarchist version.

0.9

0.8

0.7
Result of Simulation: The
0.6 simulation was able to
0.5
compare the impact of
preparing concrete mix for
0.4

0.3

0.2 design of 20, 30 and 35

0.1 MPa. The results show the
Global
warmi
Stratos
pheric
Ionizin
g radiat
Ozone
format
Fine pa
rticulat
Ozone
format
Terrestr
ial acidi
Freshw
ater eu
Marine
eutrop
Terrestr
ial ecot
Freshw
ater ec
Marine
ecotox
Human
carcin
Human
non-ca
Land
use
Mineral
resour
Fossil
resour
Water
consu
impact in various categories.
Concrete, 20MPa {CO}| market for concrete, 20MPa | APOS, S Concrete, 25MPa {CA-QC}| concrete production 25MPa | APOS, S
Concrete, 35MPa {RoW}| concrete production 35MPa | APOS, S

Method: ReCiPe 2016 Midpoint (H) V1.04 / World (2010) H / Normalization / Excluding infrastructure processes / Excluding long-term emissions
Comparing 1 m3 'Concrete, 20MPa {CO}| market for concrete, 20MPa | APOS, S', 1 m3 'Concrete, 25MPa {CA-QC}| concrete production 25MPa | APOS, S' and 1 m3 'Concrete, 35MPa {RoW}| concrete production 35MPa | APOS, S';

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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change −IPCC2007- *where, I is the amount of an input i: 1, 2,. .
global warming potential (GWP) method maybe used to calculate ..N; type of inputs (e.g. cement, fly ash,
the associated global warming potential (GWP) or carbon foot- aggregate, electricity etc.)

print of various concrete mixes: EFij: Emission factor = Amount of emission of

GHG type ‘j’ per kg of input of type ‘i’

CFj: CF1, CF2,. . .. . ..CFM; characterization

factors of GHGs (e.g. 1 for CO2, 28 for CH4,
265 for N2O)

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ECO-CONCRETE

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 ECO-CONCRETE

ACS Concrete Mixtures (Cement Replacements)

M1 (30% tuff, 10% fly ash)
M2 (20% tuff, 20% fly ash)
M3 (10% tuff, 30% fly ash)
M4 (40% fly ash)

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ECO-CONCRETE

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ECO-CONCRETE

M1 (30% tuff, 10% fly ash)

M2 (20% tuff, 20% fly ash)
M3 (10% tuff, 30% fly ash)
M4 (40% fly ash)

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 Summary and Conclusion

• Concrete represents one of the most widely used construction materials worldwide.
Cement production is highly energy intensive and emits significant amounts of
greenhouse gases which contributes substantial adverse impact to global warming. To
achieve sustainability in construction, concept of sustainable development needs to
be applied in concrete production.

• Sustainability can be incorporated in all the major aspects of concrete’s useful life
such as in the analysis and design, materials production, construction, repair and
maintenance, and concrete end-of-life.

• The beneficial performance of concrete is fully realized by the satisfactory analysis,

design and detailing of a structure, appropriate mixture proportions, proper
production, placement, construction and curing of concrete, and timely maintenance
and repair.

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 Summary and Conclusion

• The use of supplementary cement materials as partial replacement to cement is a beneficial

strategy in making concrete production sustainable.

• Cement replacements in concrete show promising results in reducing environmental impact

of concrete. Among the most commonly used cement replacement with beneficial effects to
concrete properties are fly ash, bottom ash, silica fume, slag, rice husk ash and glass powder,
among others

• Impacts and benefits of cement replacements vary with prescribed properties of concrete.
Among these benefits are reduced cost, decreased environmental impact, higher long-term
strength and better durability

• Life cycle assessment needs to be performed in order to quantify the impact of cement
replacements in concrete

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 Research Gaps and Opportunity for Future Studies
Incorporating Social dimension. There is much to be done in the area of social and
economic aspects of impact assessment. While assessments heavily focus on
environmental aspect, their inclusion in the assessment framework of the impact
of cement replacements needs to be fully realized. Additional studies need to be
conducted to integrate environmental, economic and social aspect of using these
materials

Cradle-to-Grave analysis. Most LCA of cement replacements utilize cradle-to-gate

analysis. The service life of different concrete mixtures using cement replacements
need be investigated to extend the analysis to “grave”. This is necessary to
understand if higher environmental cost to gate can be compensated for by lower
maintenance impact

Incorporating durability. To ensure sustainable development, the total impact of the

SCM incorporated structural mortar on the environment and economy should be
quantified in a holistic manner, considering the treatment process, replacement
level, and durability.

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Research Gaps and Opportunity for Future Studies

Incorporating Toxicity. Potential toxicity through leaching of heavy

metals from the cementitious products containing SCM should be
quantified before any industrial application.

Environmental exposures. Studies on how the behavior of SCM

changes with its source and application conditions are still
inadequate. The behavior of SCM incorporated mortars in every real-
life situation (e.g., high temperature, impact loading, exposure to
seawater, etc.) should be determined.

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Thank you for listening!

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