Concrete Perspectives January 2020
CONCRETE NEWS
‘Safe Precast’ – British Precast runs a H&S online database, hub and App
Safeprecast.com is the health and safety hub for the precast and other related sectors working within the mineral products industries. It has been developed to provide one location where users can access key health and safety information. It makes accessible invaluable information that is relevant to those working throughout the supply chain; whether working in a manufacturing plant, a quarry, in related value added operations, product transport or at the customer’s sites – the hub will help you to make your operations safer.
The goal of this website is to ensure that by facilitating the sharing of information and learning from the experience of others within the industry, we will achieve a safer environment for all those involved, employees, contractors, suppliers, customers and members of the public. A safer working environment with a better trained and more aware workforce will help achieve the over arching goal of zero harm for all those who engage with these industries. The site incorporates an easily searchable and extensive database of best practice, incident alerts, toolbox talks, hot topics and industry guidance often supported with short videos. Those who register will have the additional benefit of receiving e-mail alerts when important new content is added. The site is accredited for CPD by the Institute of Quarrying and registered users who have logged on will be able to generate reports of their activity on the website.
The site has been managed and developed by the Mineral Products Association working closely with organizations such as British Precast, QNJAC, MPQC, HSE, MPQC, NEPSI, as well as the full membership of the Mineral Products Association.
64. BetonTage 2020 – only two weeks to go
The BetonTage will again take place, from 18 to 21 February 2020 in Neu-Ulm, Germany. With an additional, fourth, congress day, the 64th edition of the lead event of the European concrete and precast concrete industry is taking another step towards becoming an educational platform which mirrors the complete construction process involved in building with precast concrete elements. With new partners, contents and formats, it opens its offerings to new target groups, integrating in this way into the program, for the first time, all participants in the value-added chain.
Research institutes, manufacturers, suppliers, planners, architects and suppliers of the construction industry will engage in dialogue. “Concrete Construction of the Future – Lightweight, Resource-Efficient & CO2 Neutral” is the motto of the event. How can we build resource-saving? What does the concrete and cement industry contribute to it already now? What are the current insights of research in this sector? Where are the future trends leading? BetonTage would like to answer all these questions. Around 2,200 participants are expected at the congress center, the Edwin Scharff Haus in Neu-Ulm. An exhibition of the supplier, engineering and software industry will accompany the traditional event as always.
The BetonTage are endorsed by BIBM, FBF (Baden-Württemberg Association of Concrete and Precast Plants), FIB (The International Federation for Structural Concrete) and a number of supporters and partners. You can find more information here.
2020 Concrete Dialogue: A Green Deal for European Cities
On March 17, the Concrete Initiative is organizing the ‘2020 Concrete Dialogue: A Green Deal for European Cities – How can cities lead the way to a sustainable built environment?’ from 12.30 – 14.30 in the European Parliament. The policy debate is kindly hosted by Tomislav Sokol MEP.
During a lunchtime discussion, European Commission Representatives Fulvia Rafaelli (DG GROW) and Josefina Lindblom (DG ENVI) will present the newly adopted EU Circular Action Plan 2.0 and specifically the measures targeting the construction sector. In addition, other spokespeople from the cities of Brussels and Oslo will talk about their respective efforts to create a greener built environment. A Q&A session will follow, allowing for a wider discussion of the EU’s policy contribution to the sustainable built environment strategies being implemented in cities across Europe.
To register your attendance, contact Diane Rolland at events@theparliamentmagazine.eu.
BIBM NEWS
Public consultation and feedback
Circular economy – new action plan to increase recycling and reuse of products in the EU
BIBM provides feedback on a New Circular Economy Action Plan. The new action plan will analyse the lifecycle of products and materials to ensure a sustainable use of resources and tackle resource-intensive sectors (e.g. textiles, construction, electronics and plastics). It will also feed into the EU’s industrial strategy. A roadmap can be found here.
BIBM Congress – four months ahead
You can find more information on the 2020 BIBM Congress here.
We confide in your help to raise awareness within your clients and stakeholders, through organising “national” visits, providing possible exhibitors and sharing the available promotional material.
REGISTRATION DEADLINES/UPDATES:
- Congress Delegate online registration and price list here (early bird until March 15, 2020)
- Download the final program here
- The BIBM Congress 2020’ official slogan: “The Future of European Construction – Precast Excellence in Nordic Countries”
- Twitter BIBM Congress hashtag: #BIBMCongress2020
- VEEP Final Conference at BIBM Congress (BIBM delegates can choose the option of Workshop in the registration process; the fee for non-delegates is 120 €). Register here.
VEEP Final Conference, May 6, Copenhagen
Join VEEP Final Conference organised by BIBM in cooperation with RINA in the framework of BIBM Congress on Wednesday 6 May 2020 from 10:00 am to 16:30 pm.
During the project, led under the coordination of RINA, VEEP managed to develop the following innovative construction materials:
Moreover, VEEP implemented an Advanced Drying Recovery (ADR), which is a mechanical system of sorting and classifying wet Construction and Demolition Waste particles according to their particle size. The system requires seven working days to dismantle and assemble it again, so a new design to fit the truck and to reduce the assembling/disassembling from 7 days to 1 day has been achieved within VEEP.
Also a novel HAS, which is a technology designed to further expose the fine fraction aggregates into a hot gas so as to remove the associated moisture of aggregates and also destroy undesirable Construction and Demolition Waste contaminants pilot plant (3ton/hour) has been developed. The HAS technology has shown to improve quality properties of the ultrafine recycled particles in an important way for its application as an addition in new green cements. Would you like hear and discover first-hand all VEEP results? Would you like to know how to transfer all the knowledge acquired in the framework of our project to the market and take part in the replicability workshop? Are you interested in creating a network with all stakeholders for further dissemination and coordinate with other research institutions involved in similar projects? Register now here.
BIBM FEBRUARY – APRIL 2020 AGENDA
| FEBRUARY | MARCH | APRIL |
| 3: BIBM AhG Eurocode 2 Confcall | 2: European Concrete Platform Board Meeting Brussels | 8: BIBM AhG Eurocode 2 Confcall |
| 7: BIBM Wastewater Engineering group Confcall | 9: BIBM Technical Commission Confcall | |
| 10: ECP TF Health, Environment and Hygiene Confcall | 10: BIBM Environment Commission Brussels | |
| 12: CEN/TC 229 WG4 – EP Common Rules Brussels | 11-12: BIBM Communication Commission Maastricht (NL) | |
| 14: INDUSTRY4EUROPE Plenary session Brussels | 17: Concrete Initiative “A Green Deal for European Cities” 2020 Concrete Dialogue Brussels | |
| 18-21: BetonTage Congress Neu-Ulm (DE) | 17-18: VEEP General Assembly Hoorn (NL) | |
| 20: DG ENVI Level(s) conference Brussels | 25-26: SeRaMCo „Precast Concrete in the Circular Economy” Final Conference Kaiserslautern (DE) | |
| 21: CEN/TC 229 Plenary meeting Brussels | 30: CEN/TC 229 WG5 – Product category rules for concrete Brussels | |
| 31: BIBM Board Meeting Brussles |
BIBM PARTNERS NEWS
Join the European Fire Safety Community and drive action on fire safety
All involved in fire safety agree that there is a need to share information and to create solutions. Fire Safe Europe has built the space to do so with the European Fire Safety Community, a new, open-to-all, Fire Safe Europe membership. This permanent online space enables fire safety stakeholders to connect, pool knowledge and collaboratively improve fire safety in buildings. +180 people have already joined the movement across Europe. By registering you can benefit from: exclusive interviews with policymakers and fire safety experts; intelligence on legislation and initiatives on fire safety at EU level; interactive podcasts and webinars on central fire safety issues and much more.
The Community intends to foster the emergence of concrete solutions, that’s why it focuses in-depth on three highly relevant topics at EU level:
•Data Collection: a dedicated Advisory Panel analyses what already exists on fire safety data collection, fosters exchanges of best practices and aims to support the European Commission’s tender on “Closing data gaps and paving the way for Pan-European fire safety efforts”,
•Facades Fire Safety: benefits of being in this Advisory Panel involve getting comparisons on regulation and standards as well as regular updates on the European Commission’s work on the development of a European approach to assess the fire performance of facades,
•Sustainable Buildings: amid the EU Green Deal, the Community intends to reinforce buildings’ sustainability by inserting into the sustainability debate an element that has been omitted so far: fire resilience.
Check out the European Fire Safety Community page for further details.
Croatian EU Presidency – Industry4Europe Joint Event on “The long-term strategy for Europe’s industrial future”
On January 21, the Croatian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, together with the Industry4Europe Coalition held a high-level event on ‘The long-term strategy for Europe’s industrial future’ in Brussels.
The event was organized as the European Commission prepares a new EU industrial strategy announced by President Ursula von der Leyen. It was intended to bring together high-level representatives of the EU Institutions and Member States (including Ambassadors and Deputy Permanent Representatives, Members of the European Parliament, senior officials from the European Commission and the General Secretariat of the Council) and representatives of numerous industrial sectors. The conference gave insights into what the long-term strategy for the EU industrial future should look like, both from the policy-makers’ & industry’s perspectives. As the new Green Deal will transform European industry greatly, the EU should take leadership in innovation and the products, technologies & business models of the future.
Read the I4E coalition’s Joint Paper here.
NEPSI 2020 reporting
The NEPSI 2020 reporting of key performance indicators will start on 22 January until 22 March 2020. In order to facilitate reporting, the NEPSI Council created an online reporting system to ensure a harmonised reporting procedure, collection of data and therefore coherent results. Such a tool minimises the reporting effort and consolidation workload for sectors totalling thousands of sites and ensures that the same instructions and guidance on reporting are provided to all, from the signatories at European level to each site applying the Agreement. The signatories of the Agreement provided information on its application within their sector for the first time in 2008 and did so every two years from then on, in accordance with Article 7 of the Agreement which requires information to be collected at site level and consolidated before being communicated to the NEPSI Council. You can find more information here.
RE4 Final Workshop: “Build a fully recycled house? Yes, we can!”
The final RE4 Workshop, that took place on January 14, was dedicated to those who are interested in topics such as circular economy, sustainability, energy efficiency, reuse of construction demolition waste and innovations in construction sector. During the workshop, Alessio Rimoldi (BIBM) talked about the future of the precast concrete industry and the challenges of a low carbon, sustainable and circular construction. The end of the workshop was concluded with the visit to one of RE4 fully prefab, fully reusable demo-buildings (at ACCIONA demo park) with up to 100% of recycled materials from CDW.
LIVE FROM THE EUROPEAN UNION
Brexit is official: UK leaves European Union
The United Kingdom officially left the European Union on Friday, January 31, 2020, entering into a period of uncertainty after three years of tense negotiations over the terms of divorce between London and Brussels. An 11-month transition period now follows as Britain and the EU will negotiate new agreements on trade and a number of other issues. During this period the UK will effectively remain in the EU’s customs union and single market – but will be outside the political institutions and there will be no British members of the European Parliament. If no trade deal has been agreed and ratified by the end of 2020, then the UK faces the prospect of tariffs on exports to the EU.
Croatia takes over the presidency of the Council of the European Union
From January 1 till June 30, 2020, Croatia is taking over the presidency of the Council of the European Union for the first time. During this six-month period, Croatia will lead the activities of the Council, trying to build cooperation and agreement among Member States.
The Croatian Presidency comes at a time of great changes for the European Union – at the beginning of a new institutional and legislative cycle, following the new composition of the European institutions. As well as at a time of challenges resulting from the process of Brexit.
Croatia has prepared its six-month presidency programme built around four pillars under the slogan “A strong Europe in a world of challenges”: Europe that develops, connects, protects and an influential Europe.
One of the most significant challenges for the Croatia Presidency is to reach an agreement on the EU Multiannual Financial Framework for 2021–2027.
In the field of competitiveness the Croatian Presidency aims at placing special emphasis on the discussion on the EU’s long-term sustainable industrial policy strategy which should be aligned with the single market strategy, the EU energy and environmental policies, notably the Green Deal, as well as the requirements of the digital era. The EU’s long-term sustainable industrial policy strategy will be presented by the European Commission in March 2020. The Croatian Presidency will have a challenging role in building cooperation and agreement among member states on a new EU long-term strategy for industrial competitiveness.
Source: https://eu2020.hr/
Establishment of the European Parliament Intergroups
With a letter dated to December 3, 2019, the Presidents of the Political Groups informed the President of the European Parliament of the agreement on the 27 new intergroups within the European Parliament for this legislature.
Within this list, for the first time, the political groups have decided to set up an intergroup on competitiveness and sustainability of European industry, its official name being “Competitive European Industry: long term and sustainable investment”. Also, the Urban Intergroup has been reestablished for the fourth consecutive term. It is a cross-parties and cross-committees grouping with a horizontal approach to discuss urban related issues (environment and energy efficiency, housing, local public finances, etc.). You can find the list of other intergroups here.
Intergroups are unofficial groupings of MEPs who are interested in a particular topic which does not necessarily fall within the scope of the European Parliament’s normal work but may be of interest to wider society. Intergroups hold informal discussions and promote exchanges between MEPs and civil society.
Outstanding precast concrete projects
New life for Seraing Park with recycled concrete
Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) have designed the Parkour Park Seraing in collaboration with the city of Seraing and SeRaMCo. This pilot urban sports park project contributes to the Seraing Valley Masterplan 1, which targets to revitalize public spaces in the City of Seraing (Belgium) and to showcase the results and products made of recycled demolition waste developed in the SeRaMCo project.
The joint collaboration between the designers at Delft University of Technology, a precast producer Prefer, Arebs, Parkourschool Liege and SeRaMCo partners will lead to a unique display of research, design, and production which will be materialized in a parkour park made of recycled concrete elements. You can find more details about the project here.