On Wednesday, December 11, 2019 the European Concrete Paving Association (EUPAVE) and Inma Rodríguez-Piero, Member of the European Parliament (MEP) held a Debate, attended by 36 participants, on “Sustainable roads towards 2050 carbon neutrality” at the European Parliament. December 11th also marked the day of the European “Green Deal” release: Becoming the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050 is the greatest challenge and opportunity of our times. To achieve this, the European Commission presented the European Green Deal, the most ambitious package of measures that should enable European citizens and businesses to benefit from sustainable green transition.
The debate was also the occasion to release EUPAVE’s INFOGRAPHIC: “Concrete Pavements make roads more sustainable”, created by EUPAVE’s Environmental Strategy WG. The infographic illustrates how concrete pavements make road more sustainable, and is available in these 7 languages:
• English • Spanish • Turkish • German • Dutch (NL)/Dutch (BE) • French
Inma Rodríguez-Piero, MEP has been a Member of the European Parliament since 2014, has since been serving on the Committee on International Trade, and as a substitute member on the Committee on Transport and Tourism. She is also a member of the parliament’s delegation to the EU-Chile Joint Parliamentary Committee, as well as a member of the European Parliament Intergroup on Long-Term Investment and Reindustrialization.
Mrs. Inma Rodríguez-Piñero, MEP, and Mr. Stéphane Nicoud, President-EUPAVE, opened the event and Mr. Luc Rens, Managing Director-EUPAVE, moderated the event.
WELCOME WORDS:
Inma Rodríguez-Piero highlighted the relevance of the road infrastructure to decarbonize the transport sector. She asked EUPAVE to enlarge the discussion in 2020 with more MEPs since she considers this debate extremely useful. She was also vocal about the need for EUPAVE to make its voice stronger and her need of more concrete cases and cost elements on the solutions advocated by the association.
Stéphane Nicoud added some words on EUPAVE’s missions and commitment to promote and defend the contribution of concrete to road safety, fuel consumption, traffic jams reduction, and sustainable construction. He reminded the release of the European Green Deal and its proposal adopted by the Commission indicating ambitious targets like the “shifting to smart and safe zero-emission mobility with the future possibility of including road transport emissions in the Emission Trade System to complement existing and future strengthened CO2 emission performance standards for vehicles”.
Koen Coppenholle, Chief Executive-Cembureau, introduced the cement industry’s “5 C” approach in his presentation titled “EU event December 2019“:
• Carbonation
• Clinker
• Cement
• Concrete
• Construction
Nicolas Miravalls, Chairman-EUPAVE’s WG on Environmental Strategy, gave a presentation on “Trends towards sustainability for road construction in Europe”. He reminded the need to accelerate in order to meet the 2050 milestones and the necessity of procurement rules to evolve towards measurement, control, predictability, digitalization, and Innovation.
Mohen Ech, Head-Innovation for Mining and Roads Business at LafargeHolcim, presented a “Showcase on Road Carbon impact variations” illustrated with a case study. He concluded his presentation highlighting the importance to switch construction of European highways from flexible to rigid structure to contribute in GWP reduction but also to offer higher resilience to climate change and to severe loading conditions.
Finally, Mr. Iñigo Urresti, Deputy Head of Unit of Unit C1 (Clean Technologies and Products) from DG GROW (European Commission), introduced the “Industrial Policy and Sustainable Built Environment Strategy in the context of the Green Deal”. Mr. Urresti stressed that, with the launching of the European Green Deal, the long-life cycle assessment will gain momentum in the EU policy on building and infrastructure including the green public procurement. He recalled that a study on low transport maintenance is underway in his department and encouraged EUPAVE to seize all the opportunities of the green deal.
Luc Rens, Managing Director-EUPAVE, moderated a Q&A following the presentations. Ms. Inma Rodríguez-Piero and Mr. Stéphane Nicoud concluded the event. Mr. Nicoud highlighted the fact that when policy-makers address the road issues, they tend to forget infrastructure as part of the solution. Thus, most of the measures focus on improving vehicles, “At EUPAVE we believe that infrastructure and pavement are a key lever to achieve green mobility in Europe and that we need more competition between pavement industries within a public procurement that takes a long term view of costs and environmental impacts. We hope the Green Deal will give a big push in this direction.”
2019 TRADITIONAL CHRISTMAS DINNER
debate on what the future holds for EUPAVE!
EUPAVE celebrated its traditional Christmas dinner debate on Wednesday December 11, 2019 at La Maison du Luxembourg, Brussels, Belgium. The 2019 Christmas Dinner focused on what the future holds for EUPAVE and on the results of EUPAVE’s satisfaction survey circulated within members and partners ahead of the event. Participants gave input and ideas on how to improve and develop EUPAVE in the next years. Only Partners and Members of EUPAVE were invited to debate on the question.
The dinner was also the occasion to thank Mr. André Jasienski, Managing Director-FEBELCEM, for his work for the association and to wish him a good retirement.
For the EUPAVE news, please go to: https://www.eupave.eu/fruitful-discussion-at-eupave-debate-sustainable-roads-towards-2050-carbon-neutrality-11-december-2019/
For the “European Green Deal”, please go to: https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en
Home page photo: Inma Rodríguez-Piñero (MEP), Luc Rens, Stéphane Nicoud, Iñigo Urresti, Mohsen Ech, Nicolas Miravalls