Prospective life cycle assessment of European cement production

Abstract

Various measures can be employed to decarbonise cement production, including clinker substitution, alternative fuels, kiln improvements, and carbon capture and storage. In this study, we quantify the CO2-eq. emissions mitigation potentials of these measures on typical cement production in Europe until 2050 using prospective life cycle assessment, including the influence of possible futures of socioeconomic development. We combined environmental product declaration data for cement production with a modified life cycle inventory database (based on ecoinvent v.3.6) that incorporates scenarios developed using the IMAGE (Integrated Model to Assess the Global Environment) integrated assessment model (IAM). The IAM translates socio-economic factors into environmental data that follow Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (e.g., SSP2) to consistently describe possible futures of socio-economic development and environmental change beyond cement production, i.e., the ‘background effects’. The results show that in 2050, cement can be produced with significant CO2-eq. emissions reductions using clinker substitution (42%), alternative fuels (25%), or improved kiln efficiency (12%) relative to 2020. When combined, these measures could reduce CO2-eq. emissions of cement production by ∼58% (excluding carbon capture and storage) and ∼88% (including carbon capture and storage) by 2050 relative to year 2020, which could lower CO2-eq. emissions to as low as 0.09 kg per kg cement by 2050. The effect of using future decarbonisation scenarios for the electricity mix on the results is an additional ∼10% reduction in CO2 -eq. emissions by 2050. Multiple credible pathways exist for the cement sector to achieve and surpass CO2-eq. emissions reductions consistent with global climate targets.