The Future of EPDs in Concrete 

Podcast Transcript

Sarah McGuire: 

Hello, concrete revolutionaries, and welcome to the sixth episode of Building Better with AI. I’m your host, Sarah McGuire, and today, we’re going to be discussing everything there is to know about Environmental Declaration Products usually referred to as EPDs. Joining us today is Juan Gonzalez. He’s the manager of strategic development and sustainability at Vulcan Materials. As a civil engineer, Juan spearheads initiatives for zero concrete waste and low carbon concrete. With a decade under his belt at Central Concrete Supply, a subsidiary of Vulcan Materials in the Bay Area, Juan is a driving force in advancing sustainability in the construction sector. Juan, welcome to the podcast. 

Juan Gonzalez: 

Well, thank you, Sarah, for having me, and it’s a pleasure to be here with you this afternoon. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Amazing. So Juan, Johnny, you go by two different names consistently. I’ve known you since 2017, and we need to set a benchmark. Which one are we using for the duration of this podcast? 

Juan Gonzalez: 

For this podcast, we could go with Juan Gonzalez. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Juan. Okay. Perfect. Juan, we’ve actually known each other since, I think, 2017, because you were a big part of helping bring some of our technology to the industry back then when we were in our early stages. The reason I wanted to have you on is because the group that you work for was acquired by Vulcan Materials, was actually the first company to ever really create an official Environmental Product Declaration, obviously in partnership with Climate Earth. Do I have that right? 

Juan Gonzalez: 

Yes. That is correct. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Before we get too into the technical stuff, first, I really would like to know, what drew you to the concrete industry in the first place, and why this path of sustainability that you’ve been, I don’t want to say preaching, but really pushing over the last decade or at least ever since I’ve known you? 

Juan Gonzalez: 

Well, to be quite honest, I think, like a lot of us that’s joined the ready mix industry, it really just happened by chance, and I’m part of that statistic. This was definitely not planned. While I was attending Chico State as a civil engineer, I was interested in water resources, actually. I thought I was going to do some design work in the water resource side, but when I graduated, we were still filling the remnants of the 2010 recession. It was tough to find a job, but I had a friend that graduated, actually, a year before I did that was working with Central Concrete in the lab there in San Jose. He let me know there was an opportunity, and I applied. 

It was great. Started there in the lab, and I’m still here, and now as a sustainability manager for Central Concrete, which is a subsidiary of Vulcan Materials Company, specifically for the Western Division out here on the concrete side. But Vulcan is a building materials company. Outside of concrete, we also do asphalt and aggregate, and Vulcan is the largest aggregate producer in the country. We have a great team. We enjoy innovating and pushing each other to excel, and this opportunity with Central Concrete has led me to be on a podcast here with you. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Thank you. I love that. Thank you for sharing that, and now you are not old enough to have actually been around when the first EPD was created, I don’t think. I don’t think you were there for its formation, but you can certainly shed light on the history of that today. Is that right? 

Juan Gonzalez: 

Yes. So I’ll give a quick history. Back in 2003, Jeff Davis, our general manager at the time, invested in an extra silo capacity at each of our concrete ready mix batch plant. This was to offer an alternative SCM to our customers. With that came a marketing branding approach that we brought into the market early on in 2000s with environmental-friendly technologies. It’s a branding approach that you tend to see a lot more from ready mix producers or even producers going on into the market. But we were slightly ahead of our time, I guess you could say, and we went away from that. Because we just didn’t see the marketing approach that way or spending dollars in marketing that way. 

That’s when EPDs really came into the fold. Jeff Davis was reading an article or something about EPDs in a magazine, and reaches out to Chris Erickson with Climate Earth, and requests three items from him. I believe the conversation went something like, “I want Central Concrete to be the first in the nation to have concrete EPD. I want to have EPDs on every mix design that we produce, and I want to offer EPDs on every bid.” So this is the first of its kind. Right? So Chris gets to work. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Wow. 

Juan Gonzalez: 

He’s trying to create this tool, and at the same time, there is no concrete PCR. PCR is a product category rule that has the instructions how to produce a third-party-verified EPD. So the concrete PCR is getting developed at the same time. Believe that got developed in 2012, and in 2013 is when we published a thousand EPDs. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Wow. We’re talking a nine-year span here from the time that it took to actually initiate this. I mean, I imagine a company like Climate Earth who is doing this continuously for you, were they working with any other companies at this time, or did it take that long for you to be the first publisher, and then it really started to take off? Because that’s a long time for a company. As somebody who’s trying to bring in revenue for our own company, that’s a long time to wait. 

Juan Gonzalez: 

Well, in regards to the EPD development or just the concrete aspect and how Central approached the market on sustainability? Right? Because on sustainability, it was us identifying, “Oh. How can we differentiate ourselves with offering lower-carbon concrete.” But we went away from that branding approach of EF Technologies to saying, “Oh. 2011, let’s focus on creating an EPD tool that works for us and that could produce EPDs on demand.” There was no PCR, so I don’t suspect that Climate Earth was working on a EPD tool at that time for concrete or for the industry. I could be wrong. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Right. So you published these thousand EPDs in 2012. What happens next? How does the market respond? What happens for the company? Does anybody actually care at that time? 

Juan Gonzalez: 

Similar to the EF technology and the branding approach, there was some traction. There was definitely a small pool of industry folks from architects, engineers. The Carbon Leadership Forum was big in supporting and development of the PCR, so that was just getting started. We had these engineers and architects from MKA, the engineer looking at trying to design sustainable buildings. In the beginning, EPDs was just a product there, right, and not until, I think it was for the SFO Terminal 1 projects where we really saw, the first time, EPDs being specified. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Interesting. 

Juan Gonzalez: 

Then, having a global warming potential limit tied to that specification was the first time where we saw EPDs being in demand like that. 

Sarah McGuire: 

What year was that? 

Juan Gonzalez: 

I think it was around 2015 when we started that project. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Interesting. Okay. So you mentioned that you’ve been with Central Concrete for a decade, so that puts us at 2014. But I imagine you didn’t get into a role that was really spearheading the sustainability element and that aspect until a few years later. What year was that? 

Juan Gonzalez: 

That was 2015. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Okay. So EPDs come out with you guys in a big mass in 2012. Within three years, you’re delivering concrete to a project that has actively specified them. Obviously, you embarked on this, or your owner, Jeff, embarked on this with a specific branding concept in mind, but at a certain point, it took off for a different reason. I’m curious to hear, yes, you were starting to deliver projects in 2015 that were speccing it, but at what point do you recall there being more of a demand and a pull for these projects? 

Juan Gonzalez: 

Yeah. Good question. So the owner was U.S. Concrete at the time. Jeff Davis was the general manager at time, and where we started seeing the demand for it was closer to 2019. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Wow. That long. 

Juan Gonzalez: 

Yeah. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Was that in the California Bay Area, or do you recall that being more of a North American spread? 

Juan Gonzalez: 

That’s a good question. No. I think it was more in the Bay Area, in any metropolitan type of city where it was really being driven. Because these folks that were involved in the Carbon Leadership Forum from, I mentioned earlier, MKA, Arup, Gensler, Walter P Moore’s, they have offices, and they do a lot of work in these metroplexes. So I think that’s where it was really being driven and where we really saw an uptick on trying not only to specify EPDs, but also quantifying their environmental impacts and benchmarking them to the NRMCA or even benchmarking them to their specific projects and similar projects. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Interesting. Have you seen any change in the work that you’re doing to prove that the benchmarks maybe need to shift? Have you seen that shift happen in any of the time you’ve been working with that? Doesn’t need to be those benchmarks. Just curious to know if you’ve seen specific standards or associations coming out with different metrics based on some of the work that you are doing, you’re doing with other partners, et cetera. 

Juan Gonzalez: 

Yeah. The benchmarks have shifted for sure, just thinking about the data and how data gets updated. Then, there’s more EPDs being produced, because there’s more demand about it. Right? So inherently, you do get that shift on the EPD numbers, and there’s more producers coming in and submitting their information to the NRMC Association. The shift for policy has been, also, a big push outside of the private sector. Right? One, I want to say it’s not really a regulation, but more so a concrete spec requirement, was from Marin County Low Carbon Concrete Code. 

That was one of the first influential standard specs that Bruce King with Ecological Building Network was really influential alongside with Carbon Leadership Forum and, obviously, Marin County. They were able to create this working group with industry folks like ourselves, architects, engineers, contractors, NGOs to help construct this Low Carbon Concrete Code. From my perspective, it’s one of the better ones out there. It should be a model, because the way they approached it, they got local data. They got local information, and I think they did a good job. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Interesting. So I’m really curious to pick apart a few more of those breakthrough moments, because we’ve jumped from 2003, to the initial idea of wanting to do this, to 2012, actually finally putting out a thousand EPDs now available in your domain. Now, we see, 2015, we’re actually pushing concrete out the door where we’re referencing those EPDs because somebody specced it. But from 2015 to 2019, that feels like, once again, a bit of a lull. Now, in our industry, four years is nothing. But from 2015 to 2019, what do you think started to change that people said, “This is something we really need to be looking at”? 

Juan Gonzalez: 

I think word embodied carbon started to become popular, started to become a buzzword. It’s a buzzword now, and it was more so of a buzzword like in these metro areas, where you had these designers and specifiers looking in part of these associations that were looking at decarbonization, if it was Architecture 2030 with their goals and initiatives that they had, if it was a carbon leadership, where I’m just getting a network of folks with this common goal to decarbonize the construction industry. When Architecture 2030 came, that analysis that identified the breakdown of embodied carbon in the construction sector is where folks were really engaging, and it just got popular, as it was being talked about a lot more. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Yeah. Interesting, and then I also, I have to say from my own observations, I remember seeing you do a presentation at one of the NRMCA annual conventions. I believe it was the spring 2019. I do remember sitting in that room, and it was brand new information to a lot. A lot of people were quite engaged in what you were saying, but I think a lot of people in the room also felt like they had a lot more time. 

But little did we know that the next annual convention would be when the world was shutting down, and then I feel like that also kind of spearheaded a lot of these environmental initiatives. Because people had more time to think and obsess over these things, as well, and it’s kind of spearheaded a general mental shift, I’d say. But from 2019 to where we are now, have you seen any other big breakthrough moments, and would you agree with me that the pandemic kind of pushed those even further? If you do, I’m curious to hear how. 

Juan Gonzalez: 

What I see is there’s going to be a shift now with data. Data’s big, and to be able to produce EPDs on demand as we batch our concrete, I believe that’s where it’s going to go. I know that that is a challenge for the industry and any tool operator or even a concrete producer, because it does take a lot of effort and a lot of work. But I think that’s where we’re going to be headed. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Let’s start to dive into that more now. So what is an Environmental Product Declaration as it pertains to this industry? What does it do? What is it showing, and how do you actually make one today? 

Juan Gonzalez: 

Yeah. Good question. So it’s a third-party-verified registered document that communicates transparency on environmental impact. Every product has one, from flooring products, to window products, to cement, aggregate, concrete. You could develop an EPD for every product. That’s as long as there is a product category role, PCR, associated with that product. The EPD houses metrics, multiple metrics that get produced on an EPD. The most popular metric is the global warming potential metric, GWP for short, and that is a measurement of kilograms of steel to equivalents based off of the unit of measure for, if it’s tons, or if it’s metric, the cubic yards, cubic meters. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Interesting. So this is based off of … Essentially, in a system that you have to generate EPDs, where the hard, cold data lives of what every material is actually going to output. And so it’s not as if we can actually edit those or those change. That is something that’s controlled and regulated. 

Juan Gonzalez: 

Going back to what it takes to get an EPD developed, it’s background data that’s being collected, and it’s data from our vendors, whether it’s a cement vendor, admix vendor, aggregate, or what have you. But the tool operators try to use LCI data tied to that specific vendor and their impacts. Then, we also determine the transportation distance from that vendor’s location and each touch point, whether they have terminals and how they’re transporting that material, the mode of transportation. Is it by sea? Is it by rail? Is it by transport, a truck or whatnot? If it hits a terminal and then to our facility, we have to measure all that. 

The third portion of it on the production state is our impacts on site. All this information’s collected, and it gets verified. I think right now, the challenge is how to fact check some of that data. How do we assure that data is being accurate? I think right now, we have the opportunity with the PCR going through an update that we’re currently working through, is, how do we provide more quality EPDs for the market? 

Sarah McGuire: 

Interesting. So that is something that you’re actively working on now to fact check. Is that a common concern or pushback of the industry? 

Juan Gonzalez: 

Yes. That is a big concern, and many reasons why you see producers and manufacturers concerned about having EPDs being compared between similar products and more so, and sometimes they get compared between other products, where you’re not supposed to. That’s not what EPDs are meant for. It has to be similar products or declared unit. So yeah. That is a concern that many operations do have when it comes to having EPDs as a procuring measurement for the project. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Now, I also understand that an EPD is meant to state the impact that it’s going to have across its entire lifetime. So how does an EPD account for concrete having a longer lifetime than other materials? 

Juan Gonzalez: 

Well, EPD, it’s only being measured between the production stage, also called cradle-to-gate, and it’s just those three points that I referenced earlier. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Right. 

Juan Gonzalez: 

Now, outside of that A1, A2, A3, it’s currently not being measured, and I know there’s been talks to expand the role for the concrete PCR specifically. Because there is value in the performance of concrete, and the lack of quantifying how concrete is more durable, and you don’t have to repair it as much as other materials, and the fact that it lasts longer, and then, at the end of life, concrete can be recycled and reused again, whether it’s in the same, concrete, or whether it’s a fill for a new project. 

Sarah McGuire: 

That’s a very good point, and it’s something that I think we are all speaking about quite actively, people that are involved in the concrete industry. But it’s not something that I think is being taken with the right value outside of the industry, and that’s definitely a big gap. I think our industry can get under fire a lot for being unsustainable, but now, we’re seeing all of these initiatives come out. We’re seeing real change, in my opinion. Obviously, I’m biased, because we’re trying to be a part of that change. But there’s a lot to be said about building something that’s going to last longer, even just from a fire hazard perspective, which had never crossed my mind before we had that fire marshal come to Concrete Works one year and be our keynote speaker. 

Now, every time I go to a hotel, I request to be right beside the stairwell, because that has been put in my mind. I do not want to stay on a higher floor than the seventh floor, because he ingrained that into me. But it’s important, and it’s something that we’re not really talking about. We see a pie chart of what contributes the most to CO2 in the world, and with concrete being 8% of it, we’re not really considering the fact that by doing that, it might be tenfold over the same amount of time if we’re not building in the right way from the get-go. I think that’s definitely something that people are really concerned about right now, is that that’s not getting enough light, even though we know that to be so true. 

Juan Gonzalez: 

Concrete also sequester CO2, right, and especially if it’s not cured or covered with any paint or whatnot, but there’s the lack of that value. It’s hard to quantify, so it’s hard to really measure. So it’s hard to promote it. But the other thing is the fact that concrete could be recycled, and reused, and repurposed. That is not measured in the EPD. That’s not a measurable metric right now. Can it be? I’m sure it can, and it’s about being sustainable and not just claiming to be sustainable. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Right. Well, back to Central Concrete Supply doing so many EPDs, are you doing an EPD for every mix that you do? 

Juan Gonzalez: 

Yeah. It’s the tool that Jeff Davis asked for. He needed something that he could produce an EPD for every concrete mix that gets developed. We have a complex building material, very complex, and we develop mixes on demand all the time. If we didn’t have a tool to produce EPDs for every concrete mixture, it’ll take longer for EPDs to catch on, because now, you would have to pay new services. How do you do it without that? I don’t know. I had the luxury of having a tool, and that’s on-demand EPD generation. 

Sarah McGuire: 

So you guys have a product that allows you to do this on demand, and you have to. Because you’re literally doing it for every mix. But most companies are doing it when it’s requested, and for many companies across the country or across both of our countries, I should say, many companies are being faced with it for the first time, or it’s looming. So what would you suggest to a company that’s looking at this, going, “I have to do an EPD to win this job. It’s coming to my market, and I don’t know what next step to take. I think it’s going to be a burden. I don’t actually want to go down this path”? What would you advise them, and where should they start? 

Juan Gonzalez: 

No. It’s hard to get EPDs for an operation that’s mom and pop shop, just because it does take a lot of work. We talked about the data collection. Right? 

Sarah McGuire: 

Right. 

Juan Gonzalez: 

So there is soft costs and hard costs associated with developing EPDs, and I think being tied to what’s going to be coming down the pike and understanding, maybe they could strategically try to time the situation where they need EPDs. But to be quite honest, there’s a lot of tools out there. The one I’m talking about with Climate Earth, they’re a great partner for us, but there’s the associations that they could try to get connected to, their concrete associations or even local associations. There’s a lot of funding out there, as well, where associations are trying to support their members to try to develop an EPD. So they could try to look and explore at these opportunities to save on some costs, but it is going to come down. It is going to get to a point where it’s going to be in their market. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Yeah. So would you say it’s fair to say to a company, “Listen, this is the first project that’s entered your market where you need a spec today or you need to satisfy this requirement today, and it’s the first spec you’re seeing”? But is it also fair to say, “Yes, Mr. Producer, you can choose not to do it, but that means Mrs. Producer down the street is probably going to do it. Now, they’re going to be the ones that have learned this process. Then, the next project that comes around, they’re going to be best equipped to take care of it. Although it may seem long and far away, eventually, you’re going to have to do it. So why not get the competitive edge and do it now?” 

Juan Gonzalez: 

Hundred percent. I was just looking at a mom and pop perspective and trying to have some empathy for them and share what they’re viewing. Right? At the end of the day, it’s about differentiating yourself, and if you want to be that differentiator, it’s going to take investment, whether it’s investment in your people, investment in tools, investment in operation. Yes. A hundred percent agreed that that’s the direction that operation wants to go, but you’re either going to do it now, or you’re going to be forced to do it anyways. So it’s better just to try to understand the struggles that come with just developing one. It’s not really that bad. These tool companies, they’re great. They help and guide in what needs to be done. It’s not that hard. I know a lot of folks, I hear that it’s the worst thing, but it’s really not that challenging. 

Sarah McGuire: 

It’s not challenging. It just takes time, and in this reactive of an industry, it’s hard to justify putting that time aside sometimes. I completely empathize for that. I mean, of course, as a company like ours, we’re bringing technology out to try to reduce the time that people have to spend so they can be more proactive about these things. But it is about finding the time to work on the project that’s, long-term, going to save you time. It’s a bit of a catch-22. So it’s very understandable, but that’s really helpful. 

You have obviously been a big part of spearheading this, and it’s now kind of reverberated across the country. We’re seeing this kind of take off in other places. Are you actively working with the associations right now to guide and help more companies that are getting on board with this, or do you feel like at this point, it’s really taken off enough that the tool providers are the experts, and that’s not something that you’re partaking in a lot anymore? 

Juan Gonzalez: 

Yeah. Not so much, but I do support our associations. We got NRMCA, NSSGA, CalCIMA. Anytime they reach out for help or support on any conversation, or presentation, or education, we’re there. But when it comes to implementing, no, I think the tool operators, they know there’s an opportunity for them to capture more customers, and they’re the ones that are really spearheading that. There’s no need for trying to push that movement like it was early on, right, when we were at associations trying to convince folks in the room that had no clue what we’re talking about. But yeah. Time has changed. 

Sarah McGuire: 

No. That makes sense. One more question on this subject for you. When you think back, there’s a lot of markets, like you said, that they’re not seeing this yet. There’s a lot of markets right now, as well, where they’ve seen it a couple of times on big projects because it was specced. Maybe it was initiated by a neighboring market or whatever the reason might be, but from the time that we see that first specification get in there, and people start talking about it, for the producers that are seeing one or two specs kind of coming in their market, are you willing to make an educated guess on how long it’ll be before they start seeing this as a trend? 

Juan Gonzalez: 

It’s market-dependent. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Okay. That’s a very diplomatic answer of you. That’s fine. 

Juan Gonzalez: 

But let’s be honest. It is very market-dependent. Concrete is market-dependent. We have concrete in the Bay Area that have 70% cement replacement. If you go into Central California, you don’t have that. 

Sarah McGuire: 

You’re right. It’s all about availability of supply and everything, of what’s actually there for you, what resources are there for you, where’s the knowledge that we’re pulling from? Some markets are doing a really great job of grasping everything that’s in the know. I think, to your point before, the associations are everything when it comes to this. I know that sometimes, it feels like we’re sitting in meetings, and it just doesn’t feel like things are getting done. But all of that knowledge share that happens of transferring that over, it’s huge. You can see that impact that’s happening. Over the last few years especially, I’ve come to value that engagement so much more. 

I want to pivot more to talking about how this impacts optimization, because I know that you have your own optimization goals. We won’t go, necessarily, into that. You guys are very much on the forefront of optimization and what that means. But as it refers to EPDs and actually reporting on these things and looking at them, are you leveraging what you’re doing with the EPDs, or was that something that actually sparked you to all look at optimization in a closer way? Because you would’ve been sitting on much more data than you probably would’ve been before that you could actually leverage and push forward in this realm. 

Juan Gonzalez: 

Yeah. I think we’re always innovating. Sarah, we’re always trying to stay in the forefront. We’re always looking at opportunities. We have the data. We could try to optimize our mixes, and the more pounds per PSI that we could get among concrete mixes, the better that we’re off, the more competitive that we could be, whether it’s in the space of sustainability with less cement content in our mix designs, reducing our GWP number for that, and/or just having a good-quality mix that’s still meeting the appropriate performance that the customer needs at the minimum amount of cement in the concrete mix design. Cement is a way to reducing costs, as well. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Right. It’s a win-win. I mean, this is something that gets our employees really inspired when, first of all, most of our employees don’t come from a concrete background. We bring them in. They’re in hardware design and developers, sales, marketing, everything. We bring people with their expertise and then we train them on the concrete industry, aside, of course, from our civil engineers and our research that really do need to know concrete in order to make those tools. But that is something that gets them really excited, is we actually … when we’re bringing something that can further enable companies like yours through optimization. 

Because I personally don’t think that … Bringing AI into the optimization space, I think, is going to further enable and help the tools that are already being there. I think it’s been rare to see people look at something that our AI has shown them and go, “Wow. I never would’ve guessed that.” I think we’re seeing it in a way now where we can act on it a little bit more reliably, or we can model things a little bit easier. I think that’s the trajectory that we’re on. We’re not into generative AI in an actual practical way right now. That’s not happening. But when we’re looking at optimization, we get to go into a room and pitch to people a way to reduce their cost, make money today easy. 

On the same side, it’s not going to be subject to a, quote-unquote, “green tax.” It’s not something that it’s going to cost more because it’s green. This is a cool industry for that when it comes to that practice. That gets me really excited, but that’s really huge for people in here that never looked at concrete twice. Oh my gosh. I had family over this weekend, and they kept saying, “You work in the pavement industry.” I wanted to barf. It’s like, “How long have I been here that we are still doing this?” It wasn’t even cement. 

At that point, I think he was just saying it to push my buttons. I couldn’t believe that he didn’t know that concrete was everything to me, but that’s fine. That is really neat to be able to say that in this industry, but I’m really curious to hear your perspective on where you think AI is going to go in this space and then also how it might enable the reporting of EPDs going forward. Because these things can all tie together eventually. 

Juan Gonzalez: 

For sure. I want to go back to that point I made about saving costs, as well, because historically, that has been the driver, saving cost. There was value there, but now, also, these vendors on the cementitious materials understand the value that they bring, too, in this space. There’s some markets where you have SCMs that could be more expensive than cement, and I know that’s more relevant out in the East Coast. With AI coming in, that’s huge, where you could look at a mix design, and look at our data, and identify the different costs of these products and constituents that go into concrete, and also try to use AI to not only make nice, quality concrete mixture that’s going to be delivered, but also something that you could save on cost. Right? 

There’s obviously costs, soft costs going to be associated, and even hard costs using AI or using any tools in all these tools that we get. But it just helps innovate throughout, and we talked about it earlier. If you don’t do the investment, how are you going to stay ahead, and how are you going to be that go-to supplier of whether you’re selling a technology or where you’re selling the building material product? 

Sarah McGuire: 

What do you say to somebody that says, “Okay. There’s one aspect where, if we want to be first to market, we want to innovate, we want to differentiate ourselves that way.” But what do you say to the producer that responds with, “Well, if I innovate, I’m just paving the way for somebody else to do that, whereas I had to carry the load”? 

Juan Gonzalez: 

That’s funny. I know in my DNA, starting, like you said, a decade of being here with Central Concrete, it’s just in my DNA. It’s hard not to think any other way. I like the way our general manager at the ready mix, our VP now, he always talks about, “We’re out there with the machete paving the way and getting bit by the snakes and whatever’s out there. But it’s fine. We’re going to have that runway in the beginning, and it’s great. We’re going to learn. We’re going to innovate, and we’re going to get better. We’re just making the industry better.” 

Sarah McGuire: 

I love it. I mean, I also started working at Geotech in 2015. You started working at Central in 2015. Our companies started working together in 2017. So your team was actually one of the first that I had kind of really met and worked with. We’d gone out to site, and I saw your practices. I was really impressed with what you had built there. I also was able to go on to one of the projects that were being built that was open at 47 stories, and that was exhilarating. But one of your salespeople, I won’t name him without telling anybody, is afraid of heights. I thought it was really ironic to be afraid of heights in San Francisco in construction, because wrong market for that. You need to go to rural Mississippi with that phobia. 

But your team had a very interesting approach and impressive approach, but I was also really impressed by the way that you are very actively engaged in the associations and genuinely trying to not just harbor this for your own Intel and your own competitiveness, although it is benefiting you that way. You’re really trying to make a positive impact across the whole country, and I am really excited to see how far you take that. 

So I want to wrap this up a little bit with a couple of questions just on where the industry is going. I’m curious, as a general whole, outside of the realm of EPDs, I think people have learned a lot about how they got to where they are, what it takes to get there, and I think we can drop a few links on some good providers that we’ve mentioned here today. I’m curious to hear outside of this, what if some of the advancements that have really come to fruition in the time that you’ve been in the industry, not the ones that you foresee, but what you’ve really seen over the last decade that’s changed that you’re excited about, it was really cool to watch? 

Juan Gonzalez: 

We’re lucky to be out in the Bay Area, where they’re in Silicon Valley and San Jose. So we’ve seen a lot of startup companies come out. We’ve seen a lot of new products that are decarbonizing the way they make cement or even new type of technologies that are going to come out in the forefront, and how they could optimize our concrete mixers, or the ways construction is being done and optimizing that. But those companies are in their startup and infancies a lot of the time, and things have changed. For example, Geotech, what you guys brought into the market has been instrumental for us to optimize our concrete mixes that have 50 to 70% replacement and try to really identify the utilization for those mixes and expand their utilization. 

Because without that maturity probe, we’re still reliant on cylinders that only have 30% cement in them. So that’s a challenge to try to value sustainability for concrete. Right? Then, you do have CarbonCure, another Canadian company. They’re trying to identify, how can they reduce more cement in concrete mixes? And so I guess, going back to your question, we’re so early in the stages of what new type of technologies are really working and getting into market. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Yeah. I agree, and you’ve now added a little bit of data to our claims of sustainability. Because they are there. We hear these edge cases, but I think we’re hearing about them in all sorts of ways, in ways that we didn’t even expect. But that optimization part is really key, because you cannot optimize further than your testing will allow. That has been one of the most fundamental things as we’re going through our system, is, “Yeah. I can give you a tool to enable you to optimize your mix, and you will look at that. If you do your own field and your own lab cylinders, your own testing sensors, you are monitoring that, you will get good concrete. It will be there.” But that is not the reality of the job site. It’s not the reality of how the contractors are operating out there. It’s not the reality of what happens in transit. 

Just because you’ve made the perfect mix doesn’t mean by the time it actually gets to site, it’s going to still look like that. It’s not the reality of the testing companies that are bringing the cylinders back and forth. So how do we account for all of that and still make the best decision possible? We’re seeing some really cool results right now, whereas we’re modeling data. We’re saying, “Okay. This mix is being used by these three customers, and based on this data, we could definitely optimize. But we’re going to optimize more for this customer and less for this customer. We might put sensors in this job.” 

We’re starting to make really informed decisions, but that’s also because we’re super speeding things that people are spending a lot of their mundane hours on. We’re getting rid of that now, but to your point, there’s so many other technologies that, maybe now that we’re bringing them all together and we’re able to leverage them all together, we can do so much more with them. But in an isolated pod, they weren’t worth anything. I think that’s what we’re really going to see over the next few years, is technology allows us to model different things and newer materials that come out. 

I’m really curious to ask you one other question. It’s a bit of a bold question. You don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to. Right now, you’re pouring concrete that’s with 70% cement replacement, and you’re saying that’s still a challenge in a market like California that’s pretty moderate in climate. So you have probably the best situation for curing possible. I mean, then again, you come up to Canada, and we wrap and heat our concrete. A job site here in the winter is like the warmest place you can be. But still, you have kind of that temperate climate working on your behalf, and it’s still a challenge. But do you ever see a time where we would get to 100% cement replacement? 

Juan Gonzalez: 

I think it is for certain applications, very similar with our 70% replacement mixes. They’re pretty accepted in our market, here at the 70% replacement. But there are some situations where it just didn’t work for the contractor at that time because of schedule, or finishing methods, or what have you. Right? So that’s where it doesn’t get utilized. But for the most part, it’s well-received, well-accepted, and very similar with no cement in the mix design, if we get to that place. I know there are some testing being done in the country. We actually are doing our first trial batches with some mixes that don’t have any cement in it. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Cool. 

Juan Gonzalez: 

It’s going to be available for certain applications, not for all, and that’s where you go again, is, how can you store that extra product, that extra material? Now, we have to upgrade our infrastructure to have a fourth silo for that new product. You got to remember, we’re here in the Bay Area, and if we do do that, we’re going to be utilizing that. But for smaller mom and pop operations, where is that value for them? That’s where I empathize with them, just because of the situations they are in, especially with this changing in the industry. 

Sarah McGuire: 

It’s all very fair, and it’s really interesting. So Juan, last question before you go. You’ve given us a lot to think about today, but is there any final call to action or encouragement that you want to share with the listeners? 

Juan Gonzalez: 

With EPDs, I feel the market acceptance has really been there, and it’s been the driving force to have success in regards to reducing embodied carbon and be able to benchmark and quantify reductions that are going on. But with that, there are regulations, and I often see and hear where environmental NGOs and government regulators aren’t aligned with their environmental and decarbonization strategies. In California, just talk about here, we have three plants that were forced to close their doors and discontinue operation in the past 15 years, and it was due to tightening environmental regulation and also neighbors that disapproved of this being in the backyard, knowingly that it was in their backyard before they even moved in. 

Two out of those three plants are in the Bay Area, which inherently created a shortage of cement in our market here. While the demand of cement hasn’t changed, it has forced the market to convert to 100% import. Yeah. So now, the Bay Area, and Sacramento, and nearby counties, we are importing cement from countries that are 5,000 miles out and countries that don’t have the same standards and regulations that we have with OSHA, with MSHA. Some would argue that they are heavily unregulated. I don’t know. 

But so we’re still consuming the same amount of cement. It’s just getting imported from countries with fewer regulations and further distances, where you just want to ask, where is the social, the equitable, the environmental concerns from environmental NGOs and environmental government policymakers when it comes to this? We just pondered our local concerns somewhere else and celebrated a environmental success, forcing the shutdown of a local operation, and it’s not environmentally conscious or sustainable. I bring this up because in order to make quality change, we need a holistic approach and evaluate all the impacts in collaboration with our industries and stakeholders, is extremely important and key to be successful. 

Sarah McGuire: 

Thank you so much for sharing that. That was a really great way to end it off. I think there are a lot of good intentions out there, and I think some of them have been extremely productive, not just in our industry, but in many industries. But you’re shining a light on a point that we’re maybe not looking as hard at as we should, and so I appreciate you sharing that in that way. Juan Gonzalez, thank you so much for joining us today. This was really fun. I learned a lot. I really appreciate you taking the time to be here, and hopefully everyone that listened got something from this, as well. We will make sure to put all of your contact information out there so that if people have questions, they can reach you. 

Juan Gonzalez: 

Perfect. Thank you, Sarah.