A screening life cycle assessment conducted by Climate Earth™, the leading provider of environmental product declarations for the concrete industry, validated Sublime’s path to drastically reducing the carbon footprint of cement relative to today’s ordinary portland cement
Sublime Systems, developers of the only fossil-fuel-free, scalable, drop-in replacement for traditional cement in concrete, announced a screening life cycle assessment (LCA) validating its process can eliminate more than 90% of the global warming potential (GWP) of cement manufacturing, when compared to today’s ordinary portland cement (OPC). Climate Earth, the leading provider of environmental product declarations (EPDs) for the concrete industry, conducted this LCA according to a widely accepted industry method, avoiding controversial and unproven offset methodologies frequently used to enable the continued burning of fossil fuels — such as carbon capture, forestry credits, co-product mineralization, and lifetime CO2 absorption.
The cradle-to-gate screening LCA leverages engineering estimates of Sublime Systems’ full scale commercial manufacturing process and was conducted in conformance with ISO 21930, which is used for the development of EPDs for construction products and services. It found Sublime’s manufacturing process resulted in a GWP of 72 kg CO2/tonne for a 100% Sublime Cement™ blend, compared to the 922 kg CO2/tonne GWP found in the EPD for industry-wide average OPC in the United States. The remaining emissions were largely related to the mining and transportation of feedstocks and waste and wastewater treatment, processes that are primarily upstream and downstream of Sublime’s core manufacturing innovations. Sublime’s screening LCA also showed drastically reduced acidification and eutrophication potentials (among others) without increased water consumption, reflecting a lower environmental footprint and permitting timeline compared to today’s OPC.
Read the full press release for more information: Sublime & CE Joint Press Release Oct 2023
