Back to the Future, Precast and Masonry EXPO retrospective
In his Precast and Masonry EXPO presentation, Robert McIlveen, Director of Public Affairs at the MPA, predicted a labour win in the general election. While that prediction may not come as a surprise the Precast and Masonry Expo 2024 provided a huge range of insights into the future of construction and applications of precast concrete specifically. Here we will look back at five future predictions we are confident will occur, sadly hoverboards aren’t on the list.
1. Decisions on the way we build future homes will be based, at least in part, on Whole Life Carbon assessment.
With the housing industry focused on both measuring and reducing Whole Life Carbon (WLC), the Future Homes Hub (FHH) delivered an insightful presentation at EXPO24 on the recent launch of their Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) tool. The tool is designed to increase industry understanding of where carbon lies in house building and importantly aid decision making.
Conventions adopted by the FHH will allow developers to see at all lifecycle stages, how design decisions can be optimised with assistance from the LCA tool.
The MPA is assisting the FHH to develop the tool including by supplying up to date Environmental Product Declarations (EPD’s). The tool will help give a clear picture of how masonry construction can deliver low carbon homes on a whole life basis.
We will discover how this influences house building when the Future Homes Standard comes into force next year.
2. Carbon Capture and Storage will play a pivotal role in concrete decarbonisation.
In the EXPO24 decarbonisation seminar, Phil Matthews, National Commercial Director for bulk cement at Heidelberg Materials, spoke about Evozero, the world’s first commercially available Portland Cement manufactured using Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS). Heidelberg Material’s cement factory at Brevik, Norway, will later this year become the first cement factory to employ full scale CCS technology. CO2 from cement production will be captured in the facility and then shipped for permanent storage under sea. The new facility will result in clinker with half the typical embodied carbon of equivalent products currently on the market.
This is very much the first step towards widespread adoption of CCS across cement production in Europe and the UK. CCS be one of the key drivers behind decarbonisation on the road to a net zero sector.
3. A strong masonry sector is uniquely positioned to supply locally sourced and manufactured products if housebuilding under Labour ramps up.
For the first time since 2022, Masonry Members met as a collective to be briefed on the vast array of work being delivered by MPA Masonry, The Concrete Centre and UK Concrete. In addition, we welcomed NHBC to deliver a deep dive into the current position of the UK housing market. Early indications are that labour will seek to reform the planning system in the UK and kick start increased house building.
2024 has seen a renewed focus on local supply of construction materials thanks to MPA’s work to have masonry products correctly classified as local, 80km delivery, in the RICS Whole Life Carbon Assessment methodology. If new home delivery is to avoid the unsustainable import of foreign timber it will have to continue to utilise traditional masonry construction.
4. Multi-component cements will revolutionise concrete mixology in the precast and masonry sector.
UK Concrete’s Liam Forde spoke about recent changes to BS 8500, the concrete specification standard, which will now enable the industry to use ternary cements (three-component cements) and further reduce the embodied carbon of concrete.
There are clear indications that the use of supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) is growing in the precast sector especially ternary blends utilising limestone. The latest sector sustainability report published at EXPO24 shows their current use at 25.7% and a positive trend for the future. This is all testament to the skilled concrete technologists in the precast sector who are able to optimise mixes, not just for performance, but for decarbonisation too.
The latest sustainability report can be found here: https://www.mpaprecast.org/Resources/Sustainability-reports.aspx.
5. The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already providing optimisations in precast concrete production and has the potential to do much more.
In this year’s Precast and Masonry magazine, UK Concrete’s Matt Butcher spoke to Chat GPT, and more importantly Dr Ross McWhirter, Lead R&D Engineer in AI from FPMcCann about the role AI plays in precast production. FP McCann use automated software systems to target the entire production impacting inspection of raw materials to final stage quality assurance. The data is processed by AI models trained on company production data designed to optimise the concrete mix recipes. The adoption of these technologies is going to be required by concrete manufacturers to remain competitive in the future.
To find out more or to read other articles on mixology, Googles new HQ building and the importance of material neutrality in the fight for net zero, download the digital copy here: https://www.mpaprecast.org/Resources/Precast-Masonry-Magazine.aspx
Hopefully you can join us in the future at EXPO 2025 on May 15th where even more innovation will become a reality. www.precastexpo.co.uk