Only last month, we posted that Charcon – part of Aggregate Industries – has visions of Thailand. We pointed to a company that produces concrete products for the UK "hard landscaping" market using a photo of Thailand to greenwash its claim that "we'll continue our mission to cut our net CO2 emissions of all products":
One of our sustainability sub-sectors is #climate, and we’ll continue our mission to cut our net CO2 emissions of all products. Find out more about how we are committed to tackling climate change: https://t.co/12xlb45Vzt #aggregateindustries #charcon #sustainability pic.twitter.com/nG6TC5evrD— CharconUK (@CharconUK) August 8, 2019
It subsequently transpired that Aggregate Industries had not continued its mission to cut CO2. In actual fact, the company's emissions (kgCO2e/tonne) had increased in 2018. We posted Climate emergency? Not at Aggregate Industries. CO2 emissions increase again.
However, it's not only Charcon that's attracted to views of the Far East to greenwash its operations. Aggregate Industries UK – a company, the clue being in the name, that operates in the UK – is also tweeting stock photos from the Far East, hoping no-one recognises Singapore's most iconic hotel:
#CircularEconomy is important to us and we consider incorporating non-primary materials and the potential to recover, reuse and #recycle products at end of use ️♻️ Read about how https://t.co/BtleHXERkf #AggregateIndustries #sustainability #sustainable pic.twitter.com/qOZN6q09C9— Aggregate Industries (@AggregateUK) September 16, 2019
How solar panels and views of Singapore relate to the #CircularEconomy – from the perspective of a UK aggregates business – is anybody's guess.
The link leads to AI's latest sustainability report and Page 8 does indeed talk about the circular economy and the "increased tonnages of inert waste being used as Recycled Concrete Aggregates (RCA)... reducing our reliance on quarried aggregates":
Previously some of our sites have stockpiled inert production waste (concrete and asphalt) to avoid downcycling it or even worse going to landfill, while they waited for the opportunity to reuse the materials. This now means we are reaping the benefits of these stock piles that we are recycling back into our products, reducing our reliance on quarried aggregates.
We also used nearly 800,000 tonnes of recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) this is a perfect example of the circular economy in action, old road surfaces are removed, reprocessed to a suitable size and then added in to the new asphalt mix that can then be used as replacement road surface. Reducing the reliance on imported bitumen and quarried aggregates.
Bravo for that. But before we get carried away, it's worth pointing out – in this perfect example – that 800,000 tonnes represents less than 3% of AI's annual output of aggregates, last reported as 29.60 million tonnes in 2017.
