Items filtered by date: Monday, 05 February 2024

Poland: The Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKK) has conditionally approved Lafarge Polska's acquisition of certain assets of Eurobud Chajewscy. A condition for the approval is that Lafarge Polska sell the Piła concrete plant in Greater Poland. Baltic Legal Updates News has reported that this would enable Lafarge Polska to retain a single concrete plant in the city.

The UOKK said "Concentration in the proposed form would mean the lack of free choice of supplier and the risk of price increases for concrete buyers in Piła. The sale of one of the concrete plants in Piła will allow entrepreneurs to maintain fair competition on the local concrete supply market."

Malaysia/Singapore: Pan-United Corporation has signed a new contract with renewable power provider Cleantech Solar. With the support of Keppel, Keppel Asia Infrastructure Fund and Shell Singapore, the partners will install 900 solar panels at Pan-United Corporation sites, including its Johor slag grinding plant in Malaysia. The building materials producer is executing the project as part of an existing three-year memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Shell Singapore for the decarbonisation in the built environment. Commissioning of Pan-United Corporation’s new solar power capacity is scheduled later in 2024.

Pan-United Corporation CEO May Ng said “We are delighted that our partnership with Shell has advanced our efforts to adopt renewable energy solutions, which are crucial in reducing our operational carbon emissions. Industry partnerships to leverage collective strengths is a sure way to decarbonisation. Solar deployment in collaboration with Cleantech Solar supports our efforts in contributing to the sustainability goals under the ‘Energy Reset’ pillar of the Singapore Green Plan 2030 and brings us closer to our sustainability target of becoming a carbon-neutral ready-mix concrete company by 2050.”

UK: CRH-subsidiary Tarmac has launched the new CEVO umbrella brand for its reduced-CO₂ concrete range. A colour-coded labelling system of strength and sustainability ratings also accompanies the new brand. The CEVO range will be the UK’s first to align entirely with the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE)’s Low Carbon Concrete Routemap. Tarmac has also released a new carbon calculator, benchmarked against the Green Construction Board standard and calculated in accordance with PAS 2050 lifecycle assessment methodology. This includes a major update to the new BS8500 British concrete standard, which allows up to 20% limestone filler in concrete. The company has also developed an alkali-activated material (AACM) system in line with the new standard.

Tarmac’s head of readymix concrete performance Andrew Campling said "We've listened to our customers and made the process of accessing transparent data and procuring lower carbon concrete as simple as possible. Through the benchmarking, the options to deliver carbon savings are even easier to understand and measure - it is designed to be specification made simple."

India: Nuvoco Vistas has commissioned a new ready-mixed concrete batching plant in Hyderabad, Telangana. The Hans India newspaper has reported that the new facility brings the producer’s total in the city to five.

Nuvoco Vistas’ chief of ready-mix concrete and modern building materials Prashant Jha said “The newly opened facility strengthens the company’s position in Hyderabad. It also plays a vital role in shaping the dynamic construction ecosystem of Medchal and its neighbouring areas. This expansion affirms the company’s commitment to meeting the changing demands of the construction sector.”