All expansion of palm oil plantations
3. Impact high-profile construction projects
Most cement is not, of course, poured in backyard digs or concrete jewelry sold on Etsy — so don’t feel too guilty about enjoying polished concrete floors or beautiful Brutalist architecture.
Instead, the vast majority of concrete goes into huge infrastructural projects, such as the Three Gorges Dam in China or the Thames Tideway in the UK.
In the UK, the biggest consumer of concrete is likely to be the HS2 project rail project, which will pour an estimated 20 million tons of the stuff — enough to pave over an area the size of Manchester.
The Hinckley B reactor, meanwhile, will use approximately three million tons.
Malaysia plans to halt all expansion of oil palm plantations this year as it seeks to dispel the oil’s reputation as a driver of deforestation.
The world’s second-largest producer will cap the area at around six million hectares (14.8 million acres), Minister of Primary Industries Teresa Kok said in an interview on Friday, Bloomberg reportd.
That’s up from 5.85 million hectares at the end of last year, which will give some leeway to growers who are in the middle of replanting or who have already bought land, she said.
The proposal, which will be put to the cabinet for discussion by March, will require commitment and cooperation from state governments as certain land issues are under their jurisdiction, Kok said at her office in Putrajaya.
Malaysia will focus on boosting productivity and yields of existing palm trees, she said.
The move comes as palm oil producers intensify their fight against simmering anti-palm oil sentiment and allegations that the crop destroys tropical rainforests that are home to endangered animals such as the orangutans.
While the negative sentiment against palm oil has existed for decades, it worsened when growers expanded plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia.
“Now we are responding to a lot of accusations and rectifying it,” Kok said.
Threat to palm
The European Union Commission last month submitted a delegated act that classifies palm oil from large plantations as unsustainable, and suggested that the as is so often the case globally — will go much further towards reducing concrete use than anything you can do at home. oil be excluded from the bloc’s biofuels target.
That could hurt top producers in Indonesia and Malaysia that are struggling to improve demand for the controversial oil used in everything from soap to chocolate.
Malaysia has called the draft law discriminatory and potentially detrimental toward palm oil. The country is gearing up for a long battle as there’s risk that the ‘end game’ in EU is to completely ban palm oil, Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said last month. The bill is open for comment until March 8.
The world’s largest growers are joining forces. The Council of Palm Oil Producing Countries, whose members Indonesia, Malaysia and Colombia produce about 90 percent of global supply, will jointly challenge the bill through bilateral consultations, as well as through the World Trade
4. Divest your assets from cement firms
This week, a group of institutional investors coordinated by Shareaction — a registered charity that promotes responsible investment — with over $1 trillion of assets under management, sent letters to company Organization and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
The council said the law uses a ‘scientifically flawed’ concept that targets palm oil and “makes no attempt to include broader environmental concerns” linked to other vegetable oils.
Some environmentalists link palm oil to slashing and burning of rainforests in Southeast Asia and laud the EU’S plan to snub it, but there are critics who say it could have the opposite effect. Turning away from palm oil could push consumers toward other vegetable oils that produce less yield per hectare, according to Bloomberg Law.
“The series of discriminatory policies on palm oil taken by the EU is unfair. I think the whole world can see that,” Kok said.
“They are just trying to use the environment as a farce to discriminate against palm oil.” CEOS, including two large concrete firms, to ask them to set emissions targets in line with the Paris climate agreement.
Instead of just asking for disclosure of climate risks, these investors are asking for hard targets, and to sign up to a number of initiatives related to renewable electricity, energy
Malaysia will send a team of scientists to challenge the methodology that shaped the draft law, she said.
Love at home
Kok is also looking to gather support at home. She has a launched a yearlong ‘Love My Palm Oil’ campaign to support the industry, roped in the private sector to place billboards promoting palm oil, and encouraged tour guides to bring tourists to plantations.
Malaysia is set to have all of its palm estates certified as sustainable by the end of this year, with the government helping smallholders to do so. It’s all about working together and spreading the word from home, Kok said.
“It’s no more a one-woman or one-ministry show,” she said.
“The nation should come together.” productivity and electric vehicles.
“Cement has been on our radar for a while now,” said Beau O’sullivan of Shareaction.
“It was a priority sector agreed with the investor group because it is one of the most carbon-intensive industries.”
Two firms have responded to the request so far. Cemex said it is unable to commit, due to uncertainties about how it will capture the carbon dioxide it releases and what it says are unfavorable regulations, and said it will review its position in the next reporting cycle. Heidelberg said last June that it is in the final stages of approving the requests.
The other firms have not responded.
China National Building Material, meanwhile, has announced plans to construct 100 cement factories across 50 nations.
5. Consider paying a bit more for new homes and apartments using less concrete
Construction is a conservative industry. Developers are loth to use recycled concrete, to test out alternatives or to use less concrete because concrete is cheap and well known.
They are also wary of spending more on alternatives to concrete, in part because they think consumers won’t pay the extra costs.
Prove to them otherwise, by requesting reduced concrete in new buildings or projects you are part of commissioning and advocate for a greater use of innovations and alternatives.
6. Go for a walk in the woods
The most severe, but least understood, impact of concrete is that it destroys natural infrastructure without replacing the ecological functions that humanity depends on for fertilization, pollination, flood control, oxygen production and water purification.
As Jonathan Watts writes, our concrete slabs “entomb vast tracts of fertile soil, constipate rivers, choke habitats and — acting as a rock-hard second skin — desensitise us from what is happening outside our urban fortresses”.
He made a powerful case for how concrete transforms a culture (a civilization intertwined with nature) into an economy (a production unit obsessed by GDP statistics, which politicians can inflate for personal gain … simply by pouring more concrete).
“Arguably more important still is a change of mindset away from a developmental model that replaces living landscapes with built environments and nature-based cultures with datadriven economies. That requires tackling power structures that have been built on concrete, and recognizing that fertility is a more reliable base for growth than solidity.”
So get out, see some trees, change your mindset — and remember that underneath all that hard grey there’s a natural world we still depend on for our survival.