Cement and Concrete - Quality and Sustainability : Understanding, defining and measuring opportunities

Shelter is a basic human need. Providing shelter comes with a high climate footprint. Carbon emissions from buildings are estimated to contribute to about 30-50% of global emissions when assessed for the entire building value chain. The use of buildings with heating and cooling contributes with the largest parts but also the building material which is in focus here. Concrete is the most used human-made product in the world. On a global average each person consumes about three tons per year. Cement is the glue in Concrete. Cement contribution to global carbon emissions is about 7-9%. What is sustainable building and how could cement and concrete be part of it? It seems that the question is more difficult to answer than anticipated. Here, we develop a Quality Management inspired model to help us to find opportunities in understanding, defining and measuring sustainability and sustainable development. We then apply the proposed model for cement and concrete sustainability