Cement, Energy and Environment

Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) ESG stands for Environmental, Social and Governance. It is a framework for evaluating a company's sustainability and ethical practices across the three major vital areas - Environmental Impact, Social Responsibility and Corporate Governance. When global environmental issues, casual attention to corporate governance and social inequalities challenges escalate, investors and stakeholders increasingly expect businesses to adopt responsible practices, making ESG crucial for long-term success. ESG has become increasingly important in the corporate circle due to the growing demand for sustainability and accountability for ethical business practices all over the world. Indian businesses are results. To achieve sustainability, all the stakeholders should be involved in an adaptive decision-making process that is environmentally sound, which will encourage a global perspective and the search for various alternatives. India's journey towards becoming a 5 trillion USD economy by 2025 is largely dependent on the growth of the industrial sector as it contributes around 30% to India's gross value added. Cement, the most used commodity in the construction sector, contributed to around 30% of the total GHG emissions from the Indian industrial sector. The demand for cement is expected to grow in coming years due to the introduction of various schemes like Smart City Mission, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, Housing for All and the launch of several mega infrastructure projects among others. Therefore, along with the growing demand comes the growing GHG emission associated with the production of cement. There is an urgent need to reduce these emissions before going to a discussion on different ways of Carbon Management system. For the cement industry, it is crucial to understand the different processes involved in cement production and different sources of emission from the cement sector. The cement sector is one of the most technologically advanced industries in our country. The Indian cement industry has managed to keep pace with the global technological advancement. The induction of advanced technology has helped the industry immensely to improve efficiency by conserving energy and using alternate fuel while addressing environmental concerns. If we look at the performance of the Indian cement industry in terms of direct CO 2 emission, it depends on product variation for different types of cement it varies like OPC, PPC, PSC and composite cement emits 779, 740, 507, 312, 351, Kg of CO 2 per tonne of product respectively. Specific electrical energy consumption (KWh/t) for types of cement like OPC-87, PPC-64, PSC-59, and Composite cement-57 was achieved in general. Similarly, the specific thermal energy consumption varies with different products like clinker-762, OPC-724, PPC-495, PSC-305, and Composite Cement-343 Kcalories per Kg of product. This could be possible due to the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) through the Perform Achieved Trade (PAT) policy of 2012. To begin, the emission intensity of the cement manufacturing process. Hence Indian cement industry has very little scope for further reduction by energy efficiency. However, by adapting more energy efficiency technologies the emissions may be reduced by only 8-9% from 0.66 to. 0.60 tonne of CO 2 per tonne of cement. And adapting energy-efficient technologies can be further reduced to 0.58 tonne using the renewal energy (RE) and then to 0.51 tonne using alternate fuels such as municipal solid waste (MSW) and biomass. The emission intensity can further be brought down to 0.44 tonne of CO 2 per ton of cement by boosting Flyash utilisation from 27% to 35% in Pozzolana Portland cement, the slag consumption rate 70% from 40% in Portland slag cement., and also by product switching to Limestone Calcined Clay cement LC3 by replacing 10% OPC product. Around 30% of emissions can be reduced without increasing the cost of cement. The remaining CO 2 emissions can only be mitigated by adopting carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) solutions. The transition to net-zero cement with the help of various CCU decarbonisation measures will significantly increase the cost of cement to the consumer. So, Indian cement industry needs to develop the CCU ecosystem with the help of financial support from the government’s policies for full decarbonisation as that is the only path available to mitigate process emissions. However, even with a peak capture efficiency of 85% across the CCUS pathway, carbon offset mechanisms such as afforestation must also be deployed to achieve net zero. The Indian cement industry is doing well in green belt development and needs to do more for carbon offset. 25