At Stonecast, we endeavour to incorporate sustainable practices where possible in the production of our bespoke concrete solutions.
The sustainability of concrete is a complicated topic. On one hand, concrete has a long life cycle and durability that make it an energy-efficient, ‘sustainable’ material. In fact, concrete is infinitely repairable and can be repeatedly fixed for hundreds of years. On the other hand, cement production, a key component in concrete manufacturing, is a huge CO2 emitter and contributes roughly 8% of global CO2 emissions.
Furthermore, concrete is a material that is energy intensive to produce and uses finite natural materials like sand and stone. It may also contain other carbon heavy materials like steel.
However, there are ways of offsetting the environmental impacts of our main material. We endeavour to use as many eco-friendly and recycled elements as possible. This includes a form of ‘green’ cement, that makes use of supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) which are a waste byproduct of local coal power plants and aluminium smelters.
We also repurpose other waste byproducts, like automotive glass, as eco-friendly admixtures and utilise seed oil and Imvelochem antibond30 which are eco friendly and biodegradable release agents instead of synthetic alternatives.
Stonecast is happily partnered with Envirolite, who collect our polystyrene waste for use in the manufacture of ecobricks, and Muldafoam, who provide us with waste rubber for packaging and crating so that our products can be safely transported.
As innovation takes place globally to try and make concrete more environmentally friendly, we try to test and incorporate these practices into our manufacturing process.
