Overcoming Barriers to Adoption of More Sustainable Concretes

Description

While standards specifications and codes are often seen as barriers to adoption of more sustainable concretes, many of the levers for improving sustainability are already permitted in CSA or ASTM, but these are not always widely adopted by specifiers. As well, some local, regional agency, or industry specifications impose prescriptive requirements that conflict with desired performance. This adds more barriers to sustainable initiatives as well as confusing roles and responsibilities for achieving the intended performance.

In the risk-adverse construction industry, there is resistance to change, creating barriers throughout the construction value chain, from designers, specifiers, producers, contractors and the trades. Many of these barriers result from real and perceived increased levels of risk by each of these groups. Contractors see risk if not provided with sufficient information or lack prior experience
expertise to successfully bid and complete such projects, and construction work forces perceive risk from not knowing how changes will affect their normal placing, finishing, and curing practices as well as schedules. These increased risks often result in higher bid prices. When novel materials and technologies are specified, there is often insufficient knowledge or experience with whether the required quantities can be successfully supplied, mixed, transported and placed using the concrete industry’s existing infrastructure and in all environmental conditions.

One of the tools for overcoming these barriers is in collaborative field demonstration projects where the novel materials can be used with current industry technology. Some of these roadblocks are discussed together with action plans for overcoming them.
Lessons learned from recent adoption of sustainable concrete technology will also be discussed.