Mandate for authorities to accelerate transition

Our solution is to provide a mandate to authorities to make individual decisions on innovations that fall outside existing laws and regulations, giving the entire industry and involved entrepreneurs the space they need for quick and pragmatic innovation.

Hindering innovation

Our name, Bosch Beton, (which means Bosch Concrete in English) says it all: we work with concrete. Cement production, still an integral component of concrete, results in approximately 8% of global carbon emissions. We can reduce this and, what’s more, we have to. But feasibility and affordability are what make or break sustainability efforts in our industry. We’re already doing a lot in the Netherlands to turn the tide, such as the Concrete Agreement that provides roadmaps, methodologies, grants and new tools, and there are plans to tighten procurement requirements. Yet although as Polder country, the Netherlands is naturally good at producing all these fine plans and ambitions, a stalemate is still looming. Innovation is currently being hindered because of our over-reliance on regulation. As soon as anything is potentially controversial, it’s quickly put before the courts; a single-minded focus on legality that is simply paralysing. By definition, judges test new technologies and solutions only against existing laws and regulations, resulting in stagnation.

Efficiency is key to the transition

We need to shift the focus to efficiency if we are to realise our sustainability ambitions: what works in practice, what ultimately contributes most to sustainability? But, as already stated, this is only possible if authorities are given the mandate to make their own decisions in the event of conflicting interests and conflicting legislation. If authorities can push forward, for example, by putting new, big opportunities ahead of existing norms, innovations will be developed more often and faster. After all, it will help entrepreneurs to know that they won’t be committing an offence or that they won’t end up in all kinds of proceedings.

Performance requirement of concrete

A good example of how this can also be done is the ‘Performance requirement of concrete’; a new assessment system that aims to ensure that new concrete production solutions are not primarily tested against current standards and norms, but against their actual performance requirement. A national working group is currently preparing this new methodology and the concrete industry is also asked to provide a lot of input. The result of this exercise will be that concrete manufacturers and builders can and will continue to achieve sustainability goals through innovation. They can innovate safe in the knowledge that they’re operating within legal frameworks, even if there are no immediate standards for everything.

Third generation of sustainable concrete

Bosch Beton is so passionate about developments like these. We’re ready to engage in further pragmatic development and test new technologies; something that’s particularly promising! We’re already able to supply retaining walls that are much more sustainable but for the same price. As a company, we’ve been gradually moving towards entirely cement-free concrete and 100% circular retaining walls. We’ve already taken the next step and are presenting the third generation of sustainable concrete in February. This new variant is based on an improved concrete mixture with 50% less Portland cement, and is now used as standard in all our civil engineering jobs.

Accelerate together with decisiveness

We see the introduction of this new generation of sustainable concrete as the prelude to entirely cement-free structural retaining walls. As part of a living lab, we’re already using cement-free geopolymer walls at station locations. We’ve made the first prototypes, but don’t yet have the production process for 100% cement-free structural retaining walls with the same self-sealing concrete. But that’s the direction in which we want to move. It requires much more research and development into additives, as well as more space to test and develop new solutions. A firmer mandate from authorities would, again, help enormously. When the worlds of authorities and entrepreneurs converge, we can act together with decisiveness and pragmatism. This will enable us to accelerate innovations, develop better solutions and really work on sustainability; something that’s simply vital. The transition needs to take place now, not in 30 years!