Ep. 150: Josephine Cheung, Director of Research & Development at GCP Applied Technologies
This Week's guest is Josephine Cheung, Director of Research & Development at GCP Applied Technologies.
GCP Applied Technologies is a leading global provider of construction products technologies that include concrete and cement additives, building materials and technologies that ensure quality and enhance business productivity. In 2016, GCP Applied Technologies spun off from W. R. Grace.
With a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT, Josephine spent her entire career working on cement and concrete additives. She has taken on many roles from Research Engineer to Principal Scientist to Director of Research and Development. A prolific innovator, Josephine has pioneered numerous groundbreaking sustainable product solutions for the cement and concrete industry. She is a holder of more than 20 patent families and has been a category creator in her field. She has helped cement manufacturers around the world realize a significant reduction in CO2 emissions.
I was looking forward to this episode as GCP Applied Technologies has not been a company focused on climate change in the past. Josephine and I walk through the corporate decisions to focus on climate, the motivations behind it, and what they are working on to decarbonize the cement market. Josephine also explains why cement and concrete are significant sources of carbon emissions. We dive into the challenges faced when decarbonizing cement, the most innovative solutions to date, and how cement fits into the broader clean transition. Josephine is a great guest, and it's encouraging to see larger companies focusing on climate.
Enjoy the show!
You can find me on Twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.
Episode recorded March 16th, 2021.
In Today's episode we cover:
What makes cement and concrete such a big source of emissions and why it’s difficult to decarbonize
How GCP Applied Technologies is addressing climate change and providing sustainable construction materials
Promising areas of low carbon innovation and barriers to widespread adoption
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Jason Jacobs: Hey everyone, Jason here. I am the My Climate Journey show host. Before we get going, I wanted to take a minute and tell you about the My Climate Journey or MCJ as we call it, membership option. Membership came to be because there were a bunch of people that were listened to the show that weren't just looking for education, but there were longing for a peer group as well. So we set up a Slack Community for those people that's now mushroomed into more than 1300 members. There is an application to become a member. It's not an exclusive thing, there's four criteria we screened for: determination to tackle the problem of climate change, ambition to work on the most impactful solution areas, optimism that we can make a dent and we're not wasting our time for trying and a collaborative spirit. Beyond that the more diversity the better.
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Hello everyone. This is Jason Jacobs and welcome to My Climate Journey. This show follows my journey to interview a wide range of guests to better understand and make sense of the formidable problem of climate change and try to figure out how people like you and I can help. Today's guest is Josephine Cheung, director of research and development for GCP Applied Technologies. In 2016, W.R. Grace separated into two independent public companies, Grace and GCP Applied Technologies. GCP has been around for over 50 years and their portfolio of construction products includes concrete and cement additives, building materials and technologies that ensure specified quality and enhanced business productivity.
Josephine's career has been a fulfillment of a lifelong dream to reduce the detrimental effects of industrialization on the environment. She's pioneered numerous groundbreaking sustainable product solutions for the cement and concrete industry. Josephine is a holder of more than 20 patent families and has been a category creator in her field. Her area of expertise is cement additives, which have helps cement manufacturers around the world realize a five to 15% reduction in CO2 emissions.
Now I was excited for this episode because GCP Applied Technologies has not historically been a company that has talked a lot about climate change, but they are now, so I wanted to find out why, what led them down this path, what work they've done leading up to this point and what work they've got in store to help decarbonize this important and hard to decarbonize sector. We have a great discussion in this episode about what makes cement and concrete such a big source of emissions, what makes it so hard to decarbonize, what's some of the most promising solutions are that can help address this problem. Some of the barriers that are holding them back from adoption, some of the changes that Josephine believes could help most accelerate these solutions to reach wide scale deployment, and of course, what GCP Applied Technologies is doing to help. Josephine, welcome to the show.
Josephine Cheung: Thank you, Jason.
Jason Jacobs: Well, I'm excited to talk to you. Cement and concrete are such important areas and we did have Rob Niven come on the show from CarbonCure, but I still feel like there's a lot more to cover in this area, and- and you bring quite a different background and experience set to the table, but deeply focused on this area, which makes for a great learning opportunity for me and for our listeners, which is what MCJ is all about.
Josephine Cheung: Wonderful. I hope I can contribute in a bit to see we can do to really advance this area.
Jason Jacobs: And while you and I have not spoken before, I know you spoke with a couple people from my team, but also we just in chatting before this episode, you've watched several episodes before, so you know that we don't bite and that's gonna be a fun discussion.
Josephine Cheung: Excellent.
Jason Jacobs: But why don't we kick things off in the way that I see, it seems like I kick off every episode, which is just tell me about GCP Applied Technologies and what the company does.
Josephine Cheung: Sure. GCP Applied Technologies is a global leader providing construction materials to help the cement and concrete manufacturers to make sustainable high-performance products. We have three main key product lines, that's additives for cement and concrete, um, the Verifi in transit concrete management system and also high performance waterproofing products in specialty systems. And I work, um, with mainly developing the additives for cements.
Jason Jacobs: Got it. And so how did you find your way into working on the additives for cement professionally and what is it that motivated you to head down this path?
Josephine Cheung: Sure. So let me give you a little bit of background about me and myself. Actually GCP Applied Technologies is my first and only job. Okay. So I've been here for more than a quarter century, so quite dedicated to what I'm doing. And in fact, before I joined this company, I have not really touch a grain of cement and the company really were looking for someone who has a material science background, understanding and see what we can do to make an impact in this industry. So my background basically is a material scientist. I was trained at MIT, really concentrating in making polymers. And a lot of what I have learned and done in my studies was really learning how the materials, the structure of the materials correlate with the processing of materials and therefore impacting, um, the final performance of the material. So this is the same with cement or with any products that you're making.
And particularly in cement, really being such a big industry where you- you're using big kilns and everything in there. Any small little change that you make can really impact, um, the performance of the cement that you get and therefore down the road, the performance of the concrete. So this is where I come in, my job in GCP is what really is our special features is that we're able to really use a small amount of this chemical and really make a big influence.
So when I'm saying about, you know, what do I mean by small amounts? So imagine, you know, your home refrigerator, okay, imagine that this the size, your home refrigerator size of a concrete block, the amount of material that I'm putting in there, is basically about half a pint to a gallon. And with that amount of material, I can help our manufacturers to reduce maybe, you know, up to 25 to 50% of cement out of there. So this really is the big content. When you're thinking about reducing 25% of cement from a concrete mix, that's really quite low. So that's what I do.
Jason Jacobs: And what is the benefit of reducing the cement from that concrete mix?
Josephine Cheung: Cement is basically the material that is the binder for making the concrete. So when cement reacts with water, it actually goes through a process called hydration. That's when they start to gel together, and this gelling together with the concrete, which has stones and sand will make the structures that we know, the buildings, the roads, the bridges. So in- in terms of cement, that's what it does. And the issue with cement is really, it is a process that, as I said, it takes a lot of energy to make, what happens in there is really in cement, um, there's a quarry that we go to that you'll find limestone minerals, like clay or shells that have all the right ingredients, you then mine this material, crush it up and then mix it together and put it into a kiln. So this is a huge long furnace that is going to be heated up to 1,450 Celsius.
So at that temperature stones or anything really melts. And because one of the raw materials in there is limestone, at that temperature limestone decompose, limestone is calcium carbonate, when it decomposes it becomes carbon dioxide. So carbon dioxide get released. So when you're making cement that two things that really come into play to give you the carbon dioxide release, one is because of the high energy needed to heat up the mill, you need to, the CO2 is going to be exhausted because of the fossil fuels energy. And the second one is really with the decomposition of the limestone, and the decomposition of the limestone is about 60% of the total CO2 coming up. And with this material we really cannot do without the use of limestone. So we are sort of a bit stuck there.
Jason Jacobs: Historically, I've not heard a lot about GCP talking about climate change or climate impact or decarbonization, and here we are on a climate podcast. So I guess I have two questions: One is just how long has GCP been working in this area? And then two, why now in terms of starting to get more active speaking about these efforts externally?
Josephine Cheung: GCP Applied Technologies actually has a long history. Our company started in 1930s, as a company called Dewey and Almy. Um, and at that time, um, we are actually the first inventus for these types of technologies that we call water reduces that can really help to reduce the water and also the cement content from the concrete. So we actually have a very, very long history that goes from the company called Dewey and Almy to W.R. Grace to GCP Applied Technologies. We really haven't come out and talked a lot about sustainability, not because we are not doing it, I think it probably is more because we have always been doing it. We didn't think about putting in that context and really as what you are seeing, um, things have changed in the last few years in terms of changing of the conversation of sustainability, and that's really where the conversation starts.
Jason Jacobs: What has motivated you to speak more openly about these efforts now?
Josephine Cheung: For me, I actually personally have been involved with this research for a long time, and even with sustainability, we have been with this endeavor for a long, long time. We have as a company, we do industrial research, but in order for us to do industrial research, we also need to have a good understanding of how things are working. So we work with a lot of different academics and, um, consortium's, okay, to really get that basic understanding. They are two huge consortiums that are existing right now. One is the MIT CHS Hub and the other one is the Innovandi and which is a global research network that has just started on last year. So the conversation for me and for my involvement has always been there. In fact, in 2016, I was engaged in a United Nation consortium where a group of scientists or- or 20 of us come together and wrote paper about what are the ways that we can do now to really help to make an eco CO2 efficient cement.
Jason Jacobs: Can you talk a little bit about the both, how, the scope of the problem in terms of the GHG emissions from cement or- or concrete, and- and also a bit about collectively, so not necessarily just GCP, but as an industry where the industry is on its path towards decarbonization.
Josephine Cheung: There is about 4.1 billion tons of cement made each year. And the last five years is basically stayed stable because China has been stabilized. So because of the process of how CO2 is being released, in the past, okay, we always say one ton of cement, there will be one ton of carbon dioxide being released out. So if you're thinking about that, then, you know, that will be 4.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide. But in fact, there have been a lot of things that the cement and the concrete industry has done to really reduce this. The amount of carbon dioxide being released, um, last year is 2.7 billion tons. So there's already quite a bit that the industry has done. So that's about a 35% reduction. And if you think about, okay, so what did they do that they can make this reduction happen? That mainly is through a process of what we call making a blended cements.
So the process of that I just talked about, of, you know, going through the kiln in order to make the products that is going to make cement, that is a carbon intensive process. So imagine if you can make a cement where you can replace some part of that portion, you don't need all of that to be making the binding strength developing composition. If you can use some type of a by-product materials, like, you know, slag coming out from the steel industry, fly ash coming out on from power plants, or even limestone that you don't need to heat up, so the CO2 doesn't get released out. If you can use materials like that and still be able to get the performance you can, then that's quite all right. But certainly, right, when you add something in there, it's not going to give you the same performance.
What you typically lack is really what we call strength development phases. So our job for the chemical industry it's really to come up with these accelerators. These are chemicals that can help speed up the process of the hydration, therefore helping the cement that, um, have these replacement modules, getting up to the same performance as what the original cement can do. And the second part that is really quite important in terms of making the strength is really with concrete, right?
Concrete is, as I said, a mixture of cement, water, stone, and sand, and what happens is when you have a lot of water in there, it actually creates a lot of porosity and that decreased strength. So what happens is that when we use our dispersants add additive, it actually helped to disperse the particles therefore reducing the amount of water one needs to put into the concrete. Now you can make a mixture that is able to flow, right? When you need to work, when you need to get the concrete out of the concrete truck, now you can really dump it out. The worker can now lay out the concrete, finish it, and still be able to have the same strength. So that's really where we come in.
Jason Jacobs: I've heard oftentimes as I've been navigating through my own climate journey, that cement and concrete are in the category that's considered very hard to decarbonize. Why do you think that is and what's so hard about it?
Josephine Cheung: So, the de-carbonization hard part are probably three fold. One is a high energy that is needed to heat the kiln. The second is because of the release of the carbon dioxide from decomposition of the limestone, the third is really with population growth and urbanization, the use of cement and concrete is only going to increase. So any small impact that the cement or concrete is going to induce is going to just double or, you know, go into a factor. So in this case, that's really the three main reasons for why it is hard to decarbonize.
Jason Jacobs: And we talked a little bit about the blend of u- using less cement to come up with the materials that are good enough for intended uses, other than using less materials, is that the big piece to decarbonize the industry, or are there other aspects of that process and life cycle that also need to be decarbonized? And- and if so, how big a role do they play percentage-wise in the problem?
Josephine Cheung: I think, you know, as an industry, the construction industry is quite traditional. Many of the times when we know that, you know, one particular recipe works, we like to stick with it. And so, because of that, there are many of the times that's the- the mix or the requirements that is needed by a customer may not need to be that high. I may not need to use a, you know, 8,000 PSI concrete. I only need 4,000, but because they're very comfortable, right? With the 8,000, they know that it's going to meet the target. So they make, they make up 8,000 mix. What does that mean? That means that they actually use a lot more cement than is needed. So that the first thing that I think really as a community.
Jason Jacobs: So technology is further along than the willingness from the cement industry to adopt?
Josephine Cheung: The concrete industry to adopt, yes.
Jason Jacobs: The concrete, sorry.
Josephine Cheung: Right.
Jason Jacobs: I always mix it up, the cement-
Josephine Cheung: That's all right.
Jason Jacobs: ... and concrete.
Josephine Cheung: That's okay. And then the second piece on the decarbonation is really many of the industry can really change their fuels into electricity, and that will not really have a huge impact. In the cement side when you're making the cement, because the process of when we are making it, each different fuel has what we call different caloric value. So if I exchange out a fuel with a fossil fuel, I may not have the same energy going in and therefore my whole cement is going to change. So that is something that I think can be overcome, can be worked out, but it just needs, you know, a little bit more time, um, to work it. In fact, many of our customers have gradually change to use the different fuels. And because they come short in getting the performance, they come to us and say, "Hey, what can we do?"
So there're several things that we can help them do. One, [inaudible 00:18:56] go, let's see if are any of our chemicals that can help them accelerate the process. The second piece is also, you know, we- we work together as a group, can we make some process changes that could be different? This is really a community effort and trying to make it happen. And third, because of the carbon dioxide coming off from the limestone, there's really no way of us getting around it, but to do some type of carbon capture. Um, so that to me, um, is a must, there are a lot of different projects going on to do carbon capture. And for me, because cement plants out a really, you know, point source plant, it really is best to make the carbon capture or, you know, the- the changes right there. And for me, it's much better to, instead of storing it, using it.
So there are a number of different technologies that the industry are trying in terms of making final products of changing, maybe carbonating or concrete and making into aggregates, or using carbon dioxide to make new cementitious material. So those are some of the approaches, and definitely, as you have mentioned Rob Niven, they are adding in the carbon dioxide in the concrete truck. And when we are looking at all these different new endeavors of what we can do, cement being a material or concrete being a material that we really need to have good strength and we don't want the bridges to break down anything, there are a number of different durability factors that we need to look at, particularly when you're looking at carbon dioxide, there's something that we call, um, carbonation, which can contribute to corrosion. So in concrete, that would have structural rebars in there that can corrode under the lower PH, one needs to really evaluate and think through what can be done.
Jason Jacobs: And I've noticed recently that most of the big cement companies have put out these bold 20, 50 net zero targets. When you see those announcements, how serious do you think that they are about achieving those targets and how achievable do you think that they are?
Josephine Cheung: That's been a lot of effort, as I mentioned in the consortium's, and there are a lot of research that has been going on for at least 20 years that I know of in the companies. So I think, you know, the cement companies, definitely the industry is definitely dedicated to do it. Are there going to be a solution? I don't think there will be just one solution, there's going to be, it- it needs to be a multi-pronged approach that needs to be, you know, new thinking of what can happen. And also being able to apply it, uh, in the- the biggest cement companies that they can really adopt and use something.
And another thing that I want to point out is, you know, when we are thinking about cement, where is the growth? The growth of cement is going to be in developing countries, the infrastructure and the requirements that is needed for developing countries is going to be different from what we need in the U.S. So when we are thinking about carbon capture, when you're thinking about what are some new technologies that we can put out to the different markets, those will also be some facets that one needs to take into consideration.
Jason Jacobs: When you do think about the low carbon innovation that's required, what are the, some of the most promising areas of low carbon innovation, and where are those coming from? Who's- who's working on them?
Josephine Cheung: Many of the cement companies are definitely working on the low carbon, what I call the blended cements. Right now, the cement factor of what I call or the clinker factor is about 75%. So we think we can really go down to 50%. There are many different groups trying many, many different ways, and because cement is such a diverse area, it depends on geographically, right? What's you can mine, what you can dig out from the ground, so there can be many different solutions, but the key solutions, um, that is going to help us to get to the 50's probably not a lot, because there aren't really that many available substance on the earth crust. So one that really comes out, uh, to play is something called the Limestone Calcined Clay Cement, the LC3 cement. So this has been a cement that a research has been ongoing since 2005, because the construction industry, there are many, many different standards.
We really have to go all the way back to looking at what are these big processes that is needed to make a new innovation happen, it takes a long time. The research is quite well there, um, but probably we are still talking about five to 10 years away, and it's really not just the research. It's the standardization, right? How do we standardize? How do we run the test? This effort is really being run internationally with the many different countries, all coming in to try to see what are the standards that they can set for their own country, in India, in Cuba all over the world, that they are doing that.
Jason Jacobs: What is the pitch to the cement companies for why they should be embracing low carbon solutions? And then- then I'll ask the same question about the construction industry for why they should have appetite for those from the cement industry.
Josephine Cheung: So, I think the cement industry definitely are having a- a strong appetite, what other solutions they can do? It's really still, you know, an ongoing research. Can they acco, can we accomplish that by 2050? I think, you know, um, with, um, more funding, more research and more new ideas that can be. In terms for us, one shortcoming for the cement and concrete industry is really there aren't that many people going into research in this area, right? People don't know about it. I didn't touch a grain of cement before I joined my company. It takes a learning curve, but if we can really send the message out there to say, "Hey, this really is a big deal. This is something that requires good talents to help solve." I think having new people coming in is going to make a big difference.
Jason Jacobs: I was just going to ask, is it a bit like COVID and the masks though, of like when the messaging was, you know, "Hey, the mask might not help you, but it helps everybody else." I mean, is the message say, "Hey, like greenhouse gas emissions affect everybody, and while it might not help your bottom line, it will help the collective good." Is that the message or is there a value proposition for these companies more directly?
Josephine Cheung: I think, you know, key is really valid proposition. You know, cement is a really, really cheap product. You're talking about $120 per ton. So that's five cents per pound, that's seven times less expensive than flour. If the society cannot afford to pay for more to make this green happen, we're not going to go anywhere. So right now, definitely there are incentives of the carbon tax, the carbon trading.
I think these types of conversations is now trying to at least level sets the playing field a little bit of, you know, what is really the value, because, you know, we have been trying to sell, you know, our chemicals, but most of the time we really need to be, you know, a small little bit of something to make the difference, but there's only so much you can do, what else can we do? And if we don't invest in more, it really can't do. And you know, things like, you know, what a government interventions that can help, um, what are some of the incentives that really can help boost this so that we can make it happen?
Jason Jacobs: I mean, will it destined to always be more expensive or is there a point where the green solutions, where the scale will tip and they will become more economical the way that they're starting to in mass for- for solar energy, as an example.
Josephine Cheung: That's what I believe. But there's always, you know, that sticker shock, the first users, the first adopters, it- it's going to be difficult for someone to try when they have to put in a lot of money, um, that they don't know what could be the return and why they need to do that.
Jason Jacobs: So, you mentioned that there are some chemicals and blended approaches and things that exist today, and that in fact, those are further along than the willingness to adopt from industry. You also mentioned that there's the LC3 cement that might be five or 10 years out that shows even more promise in this area. So I assume in terms of being above the bar from a quality, but meaningfully cheaper costs, is that correct? Is that the value proposition of the LC3?
Josephine Cheung: I don't exactly think the LC3 will be cheaper cost, it will be cheaper because, you know, you don't need to heat as much, but in terms of the different processing of digging and everything is still going to be there and cement is already so cheap. Okay. I think, you know, a lot of the process is- is on the energy, but if you don't need to reduce the carbon or capture that much carbon to use the technology to do that, then definitely when in comparison to technologies, that is going to give a lot of carbon and- and they need to somehow reduce it and spend money to be doing it. Yes, LC3 was definitely something that I- I see to be a great future.
Jason Jacobs: How far away are we from a cost standpoint today from the green solutions to the highly admitting traditional solutions in this area? [inaudible 00:28:29] having a gap is there from a cost standpoint?
Josephine Cheung: I don't know enough to be able to give you an answer on this one.
Jason Jacobs: But subjectively the sense I'm getting from this discussion is that there's a big gap today. Is that, is that a fair assessment?
Josephine Cheung: Yes.
Jason Jacobs: Well, I had to say, I mean, as an outside observer, it feels a little bit like chicken and egg, where if someone are working on these greener solutions, but there's no market for them or a very limited market for them, and then in order for them to be a bigger market for them, the cost needs to be more competitive, but in order for them to be more competitive, there needs more investment, and they're not gonna get more investment if the market's not there. What do we do?
Josephine Cheung: I do see a lot of really good directions moving in that way. Just starting Europe was the one, right, who has started, um, to talk about the CO2. And when the financial crisis came, nobody cares about CO2 because there's not enough cost incentive in there. Now, um, the conversation is 180 degrees turn. So I do see a big difference in the last, um, 12 years that I've been involved in this process, going from an angle of, hey, we really need to make, um, CO2 reduction happen to, hey, it- it doesn't make any sense. There's no incentive for carbon trading, right? Your- your, the CO2 price went down to $10 or 10 euros, and now it's back up to 40. So I think the- the market driver is really going to help with coming up with the right technologies to make this happen.
Jason Jacobs: Any thoughts for what form that market drivers should take? I mean, is it a, is it a price on carbon? Is it a mandate? Is it subsidies or incentives? Is it removing subsidies from some highly admitting stuff that might have legacy subsidies that are in place? What can be done there, especially since you mentioned that innovation, at least today is not the blocker, that the blocker is really more from the adoption standpoint, but that the math doesn't work today. So what other than plowing forward on the innovation, which of course we'll continue to do, what else are the most impactful things that could and should happen?
Josephine Cheung: Having government subsidy will be really helpful because, you know, no big innovation can happen without the government assistance. Um, second one having the carbon tax to really equate so that at least when we talked to the people in charge of making a decision, now they can really place a value of, oh yeah. Your technology is going to make sense because otherwise that- that really is not going to balance out. So all of these are important drivers, um, maybe even carbon labeling, right, off products that is out there because you know, who knows what this, we have the leads, but they're not perfect yet.
In that sense, if consumers, I mean, I believe in consumer driving a lot- a lot of the discussions, so if the consumers are now made aware and more of this, then maybe they say, "Okay, should I be paying more or not?" Usually when it comes down to reality, most people probably may not pay that extra penny for the green. The conversation needs to start, right? If we are going to be attracting [inaudible 00:31:33], if we are going to be helping all of us understand what really is at stake.
Jason Jacobs: Given that it sounds like you are deeply involved on the innovation side. And so, as someone who's very accomplished and probably very competitive, you want to address these problems and get there faster and more effectively, and therefore you're probably advocating internally for larger budgets and bigger teams to work through these hard problems faster. What is the pitch internally to unlock more funding in this area? Why does it make business sense for GCP?
Josephine Cheung: Internally, actually my company's all for it. This is really critical number one issue that we have to deal with. So that is [inaudible 00:32:13]
Jason Jacobs: Why? Why- why are they all for it?
Josephine Cheung: Because it makes business sense and it is going to be the way of the future. That's really where we are seeing.
Jason Jacobs: So it makes business sense. Help me understand the business case given that it's a far more expensive solution than what's out there today, and the industry is resistant to adopt it. I want, like my happy ears wanna hear that and take it at face value and believe that it's true. Is it timescale that we're talking about that maybe it makes business sense in over a 100 year time scale, but not in a five-year timescale or-
Josephine Cheung: It's not a 100 years. And I think what I am seeing at least in the U.S. that has been, Portland Limestone standard for a long time, nobody really wants to use it or touch it, but much more recently, I am hearing from my commercial team, that's us, cement companies are really making more requests to help them to get the Portland Limestone Cement to work mainly because right now they don't just have what we call the ordinary Portland Cement, the highest strengths cement, they're replacing some of the limestone. Now they need some of, um, our technologies to help them to get there. So at least we're moving in that angle. We have never, I guess, you know, society is never fast enough for us, but I do see the, it's definitely a big change in the last three years, and more for me here in the U.S. probably in the last few months.
Jason Jacobs: What do you think is driving that change?
Josephine Cheung: I don't know if with is, you know, with the new administration, you know, people are really just more talking about it. I don't know if there's no shows like yours, books like Bill Gates, you know, all jumping into talk about climate, the journal articles, Wall Street are reporting, "Hey, if cement is a country, it is the third biggest emitter of what carbon dioxide." All these attention is really, um, coming into play to be driving a lot of the conversation.
Jason Jacobs: For a company to be investing heavily in this area today, do they, by definition, need to bet on future policy that is not in place yet in order for it to be a strong business case?
Josephine Cheung: I think of it this way, for me, what we do is we always want to try to help the cement that is going to have less of the clinker portion or more of this replacement level, whatever I can do to give them more strength is okay. I don't think I need to jump from 25% or 50% right away. A gradual step is always good because they are always different, long-term durability, a lot of different issues that we really need to work with.
Jason Jacobs: Li- like a hybrid car, like a hybrid car versus full electric.
Josephine Cheung: Yeah. And for us, it's even more, more granularity than even just a hybrid car.
Jason Jacobs: And so just as someone who's climate [inaudible 00:34:55] and wants this industry very much to- to de- decarbonize, if you look at the landscape and you've got, you know, the- the folks that are making the ingredients and the folks that are making the cement and concrete and the construction industry and the buyers and the policy makers, as you look at the landscape, what is your one wish? If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing, what is the thing that you would change and what would you change it to in order to accelerate this process?
Josephine Cheung: For me, it's really going to be standards and users who are making the concrete. Cement plant is a big plant, they have a lot of really good control, really is, you know, when the cement gets, um, delivered over to the concrete client, how it is being used, how much is it going to be used? Many of the producers may not have a good confidence on the quality control, that might be the reason why they need to put in that 10, 20% more cement. Isn't that crazy, right? We are try to- to- to help with the climate, um, we really should be controlling that. So they are definitely technologies that we can do to help [inaudible 00:35:58] giving producers more of these quality control. And I think a combination of these technologies and where we need to get to are all going to help us marching forward. It's not just one.
Jason Jacobs: The thing that you would change is the willingness from the end buyers to embrace these cleaner products, and it- it sounds like what you would change it to is more quality control and other standards wrapped around the actual innovation that can help arm the concrete sellers with a more complete offering for a more frictionless sales price. Is that right?
Josephine Cheung: Absolutely, because I believe in the end, whatever great technologies or whatever great things we have do in the front end, if in the last process, someone does not understand, someone does not know why they need to do it. You totally, you know, destroys what you have done upfront. A lot of these is what we see in industry, concrete nowadays, when people are making the concrete, they will batch the thing, and when it gets delivered, the truck driver will be the one saying, "It doesn't sound right. Let me put in more water." Why do the person say we need more water, right? What was the experience? How did the operator know that for that particular mixed design, that should be the sound he's looking for?
The- there's no information on that. And they really, you know, put in a process that with all the engineering design that we have put in to make the cement, um, to make link with concrete, they destroyed it by having the hose. I think empowering the end users for me is critical. And if we can do that and you said if I have a magic wand. So if I have a magic wand and changing the behavior in that way, I think we will go a long way because bigger companies and government, I think they're hearing a lot of messages, but changing individual behavior is really difficult.
Jason Jacobs: So given that the cement industry's been around for a long time and that I don't know the exact stats, but I assume, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that there's a- a handful of providers that have a large percentage of the market. Is it, is that true?
Josephine Cheung: Yes.
Jason Jacobs: For- for cement?
Josephine Cheung: Yes, that's true.
Jason Jacobs: And then given that relative to their core offerings, these greener offerings still make up a small percentage of the portfolio. Are there new companies that are s- starting out that make concrete, that only make clean products?
Josephine Cheung: I don't know of, it's just that I don't know of at this point. Um, and- and for me is concrete manufacturers, you know, is- is- is a big setup too. What is green, I think, you know, there's always going to be something that is greener. We're not there yet.
Jason Jacobs: If you lay out the landscape of those big players that make up the lion's share of the market, and you look at the logos, and then you look at the s, the- the same landscape of who makes up the market and the logos, once we fully decarbonize cement and concrete, is it the same list?
Josephine Cheung: The industry is consolidating quite a bit. It has been in the last 10, 20 years, I guess the question is if there, is a brand new technology that people cannot do? Then yeah, it will be a totally different logo. But most of these in terms of cement plants, those are really, really big operation that made, that would be hard, but I would not discount anything because I- I think, you know, it's in the mind's eye, we only know what we know, if- if there are technologies that can be proven, that's okay. But I do think, you know, the current cement and concrete manufacturers, they are paying attention. Um, and- and they are being sort of in some way, asked to pay attention.
Jason Jacobs: Yeah. I mean, it's one thing I think about, I mean, if you look at big oil, as an example, there's certain people that say that like the big oil companies need to die. Uh, I- I don't necessarily think that's true. I think that, you know, we need to get off fossil fuels as quick and- and efficiently as possible, and if the big oil companies can get us there the quickest, then the big oil companies should get us there. If- if an upstart- upstart's can get us there the quickest, then the upstarts should get us there. But either way, I'm just focused on the [inaudible 00:40:03] at the end, which is clean energy.
I mean, again, I don't work in this industry, but I- I- I feel similarly when I think about this, there's a difference between fossil fuel needing to die and fossil fuel companies needing to die. There's a difference between cement companies needing to die and GHG emitting cement needing to die. So it is interested in your way closer to it than I am, but just to think about if you had to make your bets, if you think the industry is gonna be able to get out of its own way, knowing how much money they would be leaving on the table in the short term and how, and how much, you know, how difficult it is to change your ways after you've been doing things for such a long time the same way.
Josephine Cheung: It's not simple. It's not easy. I always think, you know, if we have a will and if the society's pushing for it, we'll find a way.
Jason Jacobs: So with all the great people, and there's six people that have come on the, My Climate Journey Podcast that are now in the Biden administration on the climate team, if President Biden's climate team reached out and said, "We'd like some input from the cement and concrete industry on what you need from us in order to be most effective in this regard." I- I don't, I know you don't work in a policy area, so if it's not your area, you don't need to say anything. But if you, to the extent that you have any thoughts or wishes or recommendations for them, it'd be great to hear what those might be.
Josephine Cheung: Yeah. As you said, you know, I don't work in the policy area, but policy definitely drives a lot of what can be coming, and most of the time when we see adaptations of technologies is when there's standard changes. The- the chromium standard comes out in Europe overnight. You know, we- we have been preparing for a technology for some years, and when the policy change, that's when they say, "Oh, yes, come on GCP. We need your products."
So I- I do believe, you know, having a good policy is going to be a strong, big driver to make this happen. So- so I- I come in both answers, right? So we need to have policies. It's also important to- to provide the funding too, because sometimes, you know, you- you just can't, you can't, you know, say, "Hey, this is what we need." And if it is not possible for someone to be able to do it, how are we going to be able to incentivize that person or the company to be able to make it happen?
Are there different ways that we can work together? Are there different... You know, just one person working on that, on the problem, you're sort of stuck, but if you have 10 of you all coming from a different perspective, that could always be new ideas and new imagination and say, "Hey, yeah, I can do this and you can do that. Do we need to make pipes, okay, to- to deliver the carbon dioxide? Do we need..." Right?
And- and if we all come together and say, hey, logistic teams, you know, they have done all these oil pipes before, we know how to do it. And now you, right? You guys in- in cement and concrete, you know what release the process and how we should be distributing that network. If we put our minds together, I think we'll get, you know, a much faster results, sort of like, you know, there's COVID vaccine. They are things that, you know, when we are in a crisis what we do.
Jason Jacobs: What kind of climate commitments has, uh, GCP put forward?
Josephine Cheung: At this point, you know, by our calculation, the GCP products that we invented, meaning the whole industry, we're looking at, um, we're able to probably reduce somewhere in the 500 to 800 mega tons, um, at this point for carbon dioxide. Another half of that is definitely something that we should be focusing on?
Jason Jacobs: Over what time scale?
Josephine Cheung: 2030.
Jason Jacobs: 2030. Uh, and then what are your thoughts in terms of things like transparency and the importance of life cycle analysis to provide insight to the broader market on the progress that you're making?
Josephine Cheung: Very critical. If you just concentrate on one piece and forget about, oh, the rest of the pieces of, you know, maybe I'm- I'm putting in something, but now I'm needing to spend a lot of time and energy to be transporting it, then, you know, that defeats the purpose. So lifecycle analysis is- is an absolute.
Jason Jacobs: Do you share the LCA from the co- concrete chemical admixtures today?
Josephine Cheung: Um, today, we haven't. Okay. I know MIT has done, Um, quite a bit of work. What they have looked at is really on already looking at the concrete design that already have the reduced cements in there. Yeah. But can we do better? I think we can, um, in terms of, you know, what are all the nuances with transportation? How does all of that calculation? Easy for one to calculate just on the materials [inaudible 00:44:31], but, you know, when I'm coming to thinking about, um, what if I need to include the cost of aggregates coming in, you know, from different location, how is that all going to play? It's not something that is easily available, at least not for me, for us at this point.
Jason Jacobs: Great. Well, this is such a wide ranging discussion and we've covered so much ground. Is there anything I didn't ask that I should have, or any parting words for our listeners?
Josephine Cheung: You have covered a really broad area. It's a pleasure for me, okay, to be here and to be able to share with you some of what I know, and most of these are really is what I think is more from my side.
Jason Jacobs: Josephine, this was such a fascinating discussion. It's such an important area, and GCP is so well positioned in that area to have an informed perspective, and of course, the work you do within GCP is so relevant as well. So I can't thank you enough for making the time to come on the show and, uh, best of luck in your journey to decarbonize cement and concrete.
Josephine Cheung: Thank you, Jason.
Jason Jacobs: Hey everyone, Jason here. Thanks again for joining me on My Climate Journey. If you'd like to learn more about the journey, you can visit us at myclimatejourney.co. Note that is .co not .com. Someday we'll get the .com, but right now .co. You can also find me on Twitter at JJacobs22, where I would encourage you to share your feedback on the episode or suggestions for future guests you'd like to hear. And before I let you go, if you enjoy the show, please share an episode with a friend or consider leaving a review on iTunes. The lawyers made me say that. Thank you.
