RILEM Green Commitment

Since 1946, one of the missions of RILEM is “to promote sustainable and safe construction, and improved performance and cost benefit for society”.

This mission has gained importance over the last years, with the rising concerns related to the carbon footprint of the construction industry, and its social and economic consequences.

RILEM wishes to re-state its commitment towards the decarbonisation of the construction sector, describing a few actions implemented so far.

Contributions of the RILEM Technical Committees

Since 2022, when applying to establish a new RILEM Technical Committee (TC), applicants are requested to state how the focus of the TC is related/relevant to the environment. All proposals present the expected scientific, social, economic, and environmental impacts of the TC results. Here come a few examples:

• Economically, it will facilitate the broader adoption of eco-friendly materials in the construction industry, potentially reducing the carbon footprint and promoting sustainable building practices, MBB: Mechanical behaviour of bio-aggregates based buildings materials.
• This also helps enable the reduction of carbon emission and energy consumption associated with raw material production and construction, contributing towards achieving net-zero practices, QPA: Quality and performance assurance of additively manufactured cementitious composites by advanced non-invasive techniques.
• The results from the state of the art report and in particular the laboratory as well as the field investigations will have a direct impact on a scientific level, and economic benefits for the cementitious / recycling / waste industry as well as a relevant environmental impact reduction by partially substituting relative energy-rich bituminous binders with mineral hydraulic binders, RCC: Rolled compacted concrete for pavement applications.
• Through its bearing on estimates of CO₂ uptake, the work of the TC supports the further deve­lop­ment of environmental product declarations (EPD) for cementitious materials and can help to create a consensus about best practices for issuing EPDs, CUC: Carbon dioxide uptake by concrete during and after service life.

2024 Strategic Workshop

At the 78^th RILEM Annual Week, in Toulouse, France, RILEM members were invited to participate to the Workshop Imagine - RILEM and Climate change. RILEM is currently implementing many of the ideas that were proposed that day, to give an answer to the following questions:

• What is your vision for a sustainable RILEM in the future?
• How can RILEM work in ten years from now?
• How to have RILEM events for the community with limited carbon footprint?
• How to rationalize our contribution to society and how to communicate the result of TCs’ outputs?

The workshop focused on how RILEM can reduce its climate impact while continuing to foster high-quality scientific exchange.
Since air travel is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, one important point of debate was if we should refrain from organising the RILEM Spring Convention as an in-person meeting. Due to the importance of this decision, we have consulted the RILEM members through a poll. Based on the outcome, we decided to reduce the frequency of Spring Conventions. From 2028 onward, a biennial model will be implemented and the Convention will only be organized every other year. In addition, conference organizers will be encouraged to arrange the on-site meetings in hybrid mode. This solution represents a balanced approach that furthers our sustainability objectives while preserving opportunities for meaningful interactions across the RILEM community.

GLOBE

In 2021, RILEM, together with 5 leading international construction engineering associations, created the Joint Committee on the GLOBE Consensus (GLOBE), a committee dedicated to reducing Green House Gas (GHG) emissions from construction. The objective of GLOBE is to direct the attention of the global community, politicians, industry leaders, and societal decision-makers to the critical importance of the built environment for sustainable development at global and local scales.