Can We Decarbon the Concrete Jungle?
Could there be alternatives to concrete? Materials that did not produce 8% of the world’s CO2 emissions and require enough sand to make a band more than 30m high by 30m wide around the earth?
Short answer: yes.
Dan Kempner is the Managing Editor of Valutus Sustainability R.O.I., our monthly newsletter. He is also an independent business writer and blogger based in Southeast Asia. You can find his Valutus sustainability blog, VBlog, a more personal companion to R.O.I., at this link.
Could there be alternatives to concrete? Materials that did not produce 8% of the world’s CO2 emissions and require enough sand to make a band more than 30m high by 30m wide around the earth?
Short answer: yes.
Some 800-million people lack electricity globally. Many sub-Saharan Africans do not have access to either natural gas stoves or electric burners, so they cook with charcoal, which is severely damaging to both the climate and human health.
Now, several startups have begun offering affordable pay-as-you-go stoves and phones, expanding access to electricity, communication, and safe cooking methods.
Land, while it contributes carbon to the atmosphere, is in fact a tremendous carbon sink. Rocks, trees and foliage, peat and soil, all can store immense reserves of carbon. With better husbandry of soil, forests, croplands, and water, we could do an untold amount of good for the environment.
The two sides of the land-climate coin, the very peril that may be our salvation, is that so many of the solutions on land are so intrinsically simple.