Cement manufacturing is an energy-intensive industry which uses a large amount of resources and contributes environmental impacts at both small and large scales. The growth of key world economies has led to an increase in the use of construction materials and therefore in the demand for cement, particularly in the Asian region. With increasing interest on sustainability issues, environmental concerns posed by the cement industry in Myanmar were investigated in order to explore options to mitigate emissions and subsequent environmental impacts. Comparative life cycle assessments were conducted including a base scenario (existing cement production scheme) and five alternative scenarios developed mostly with a focus on energy efficiency and the use of alternative fuels and materials. A cradle-to-gate system boundary was considered, limiting the scope of the study to raw material extraction, transportation and manufacturing. The impact assessment was performed based on the ReCiPe (2016) method. The results showed that the mitigation options employed in specific scenarios led to a significant reduction in major emissions and consequent environmental impacts in comparison with the base scenario. Above all, the ideal scenario (combination of all possible mitigation options) showed the best results enabling a decrease in emissions of CO2 by 10–50%, NOx by 5–23%, SO2 by 4–20% and PM2.5 by 6–22% compared to a base scenario. This resulted in a reduction of major environmental impacts by 10–50% for climate change, 6–27% for photochemical oxidant formation: ecosystem quality, 7–22% for particulate matter formation, 6–22% for terrestrial acidification and 8–64% for fossil resource scarcity.

Cite

Tun, T.Z., Bonnet, S., Gheewala, S.H., 2021. Emission reduction pathways for a sustainable cement industry in Myanmar. Sustainable Production and Consumption, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2021.01.016.