Thursday, 25 February 2021

‘We have a mission - cut carbon in everything we do’ – claims Aggregate Industries

We’ve often posted how Aggregate Industries and parent LafargeHolcim say one thing and do another. It is not surprising this blog site comes top when you Google "aggregate industries" and greenwashing:
Google lafargeholcim and greenwashing and the result is similar:
The tweet below is a good example of what Aggregate Industries’ greenwashing looks like.

Because clearly: 

– given that Aggregate Industries appears to have given up publicly reporting CO2 emissions, 


– given that Aggregate Industries is still pushing a scheme in Devon to haul as-dug aggregate 2.5 million miles to a processing site that already has more than 10 millions tonnes of the same material, 

the claim below is bullshit.
   
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So, what’s the excuse this time?

Aggregate Industries has once again failed to meet an agreed extension for determination of its planning application to quarry Straitgate Farm.

Last October, Aggregate Industries and Devon County Council agreed to extend the determination date of the company's planning application to 31 March 2021. It was the 11th such extension. This extension has now been missed, given that submission of further information would require at least 30 days of public consultation before the next DMC meeting of 24 March. 

What was Aggregate Industries’ excuse in October? 
 we require further time to compile the additional information
How long has Aggregate Industries had to compile information? As we previously posted:
Aggregate Industries began compiling back in 2011. A planning application was launched in 2015. The application was withdrawn. More information was compiled. In 2017 a revised application was lodged. Questions were raised. More compiling. In 2019, questions were still being raised about fundamental issues on sustainability, on drinking water sources and the cattle crossing conundrum; information that should have been compiled with the original application, information still outstanding.
At the time, we questioned why a few more months would do it. Nevertheless, we had the assurance from Aggregate Industries’ CEO no less. Last year, Guy Edwards claimed the company would be submitting the additional information required "shortly". 

That was almost 3 months ago. And still no sign. 

So what cock-and-bull excuse has Devon County Council been fed this time? How much extra time will Aggregate Industries now buy itself? Weeks? Months? Years? Ad infinitum? 

What we do know is it’s now 2021 and Aggregate Industries has been compiling information for TEN YEARS. No planning application for a quarry – however complicated – needs that amount of time. 

What that tells us is that this application makes NO sense – from a groundwater perspective, from a sustainability perspective, even from a cows crossing the road perspective. 

On the cattle crossing issue it’s still not clear we are any further forward. It is clearly fundamental to know how this issue can be resolved before the application for a quarry can proceed to determination. 

In May 2017, Devon County Council made it clear that it needed to see how the issue of cows and their impact on road safety could be dealt with before proceeding any further; the Council’s number one Regulation 22 request of Aggregate Industries was: 
assess the implications of the farmer moving cattle across the B3174 as a result of the proposal
For whatever reason, Aggregate Industries has not wanted to do so. No document that we have seen has yet addressed the issues: addressed the safety implications, addressed the traffic implications.

Aggregate Industries took all last year just to submit a planning application to East Devon District Council for a new field gate, an application still awaiting the Road Safety Audit that was requested by Devon County Council in December. 

Devon County Council has told Aggregate Industries that its application for a quarry at Straitgate "needs to include the proposed agricultural access". Clearly we will need to know the outcome of the application for this access – and the impact of cows regularly crossing the B3174 Exeter Road in this location – before any quarry application can be determined. 

What we already know is that a quarry at Straitgate Farm – a dairy farm – would remove almost 90% of the grazing land and displace cows to alternative pasture across the B3174 Exeter Road. What we also already know is that Highways England says the risk to the A30 must be assessed if livestock movements across the B3174 were to increase.     

So the wait goes on. Lives on hold. Businesses on hold. Either the sand and gravel – barely a million tonnes of saleable material some 23 miles away from the site where it would be processed, the site that already has 10 million tonnes of the same material in the ground – is extremely important, or Aggregate Industries has friends in high places.
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Sunday, 21 February 2021

AI in ‘non-compliance’ with YET ANOTHER Section 106 agreement

Aggregate Industries has assured Devon County Council that any derogation of surrounding drinking water supplies and stream flows caused by its proposed quarry at Straitgate Farm would be covered by a Section 106 legal planning agreement – notwithstanding the fact that to date AI’s legal assurances for alternative water supplies have been found "unfit for purpose".

A year ago, the Environment Agency sent renewed guidance to Devon County Council which "consolidates and revises our requirements for conditions and obligations." On the S106 issue:   
Although impacts to private water supplies and stream flows are considered unlikely, the applicant shall submit draft text for a Section 106 agreement to Devon County Council. This shall include Cadhay House Spring, Cadhay House mediaeval fishponds, Cadhay Bog and Cadhay Wood Stream. It shall be based upon the principles described in section 2.8 of the July 2017 Regulation 22 responses report. Additionally, in the case where a period of investigation is required into adverse impact to a private water supply, the agreement shall provide for a temporary water supply during the period of investigation. The Section 106 agreement shall include a monitoring management and mitigation strategy. This strategy shall include an outline of possible mitigation measures which could be put into place in different circumstances. In its water quality provisions, the S106 agreement shall include pH. 
The issue is, Aggregate Industries has problems complying with S106 agreements – here and here being two examples. We previously wrote:
If AI can't be bothered to fulfil its Blackhill obligations, what hope is there for Straitgate? What hope for people who lose their drinking water supplies? What hope for people whose supplies become contaminated? What hope for timely action, when the last three hydrological monitoring reports for Blackhill have either been submitted late or not at all, when surface flows haven't been measured since 2011? What use is the wording below, if AI doesn't comply with Section 106 agreements? 
Devon County Council's recent monitoring report for Hillhead details another S106 that has not been complied with, this time for planning application DCC/4067/2018. The S106 can be found here. The monitoring report details the "CURRENT NON COMPLIANCE":
4.17 There exists a Legal Agreement to widen Clay Lane. The requirement was "within 2 months of the date of issue of the Planning Permission DCC/4067/2018 for the widening of a 400-metre length of Clay Lane to allow for two-way vehicular movements associated with existing mineral operations granted on 30 October 2018 submit Highway Authority details pursuant to section 278 Agreement."
In other words, Aggregate Industries agreed to supply details before the end of 2018. It’s now 2021. 

This is plainly not a company that can be trusted to respond in a timely manner if drinking water sources were to be corrupted from quarrying activities at Straitgate. 

Failure to fulfil this S106, however, has not stopped Aggregate Industries from making another planning application for Clay Lane. Application DCC/4189/2020 proposes the construction of a new asphalt plant – with a 27 metre high hilltop smokestack that is "contrary to relevant landscape policies [and] grounds for refusal" – which "will generate approximately 108 HGV movements per day": 
3.5 It is proposed to construct a new access off of Clay Lane. Following the widening of Clay Lane, (as permitted by planning permission ref: DCC/4067/2018), HGVs will be able to access the A38 without the need to pass any residential properties. 
As if the original S106 wasn’t incentive enough, DCC Highways advised: 
I would however suggest the widening scheme in Clay Lane be conditioned so as the works would need to be completed prior to commencement of this proposal.
Last week, Aggregate Industries claimed the s278 drawings have now been submitted, and argued: 
... we believe the concerns over granting additional development in this location prior to the widening of Clay Lane can be satisfactorily dealt with by a condition which prevents the development from commencing prior to the completion of the consented Clay Lane widening works.
Yet another condition that can obviously be broken at will.
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AI confirms Hillhead is ‘the long-term location for future minerals development’

Aggregate Industries' planning application to quarry Straitgate Farm proposes that the as-dug sand and gravel be hauled to Hillhead Quarry near Uffculme for processing.

It’s a bizarre proposal, given that Straitgate Farm is 23 miles away from Hillhead, given that each load would necessitate a round-trip of 46 miles, given that the "OFT considered that it is economical to transport aggregates around 30 miles". 

It’s even more bizarre when you realise that the sand and gravel at Hillhead is capable of supporting existing and future markets for at least the next 30 years. 

How do we know? An Aggregate Industries' planning manager was helpful recently in confirming as much. According to correspondence supporting the relocation of the company’s asphalt plant:
Hillhead... is an area of existing and future allocated mineral development and it is therefore seen as the long-term location for future minerals development to serve this part of Devon because of the excellent transport links that it has.
Of course, it’s no surprise that Hillhead is the long-term location for future minerals development, given that it has more than 10 million tonnes of sand and gravel still in the ground next door to its recently relocated processing plant. 

But it’s useful to hear it from the horse’s mouth, to have it clarified before Aggregate Industries gets around to having its application for Straitgate Farm determined. 

Because if Hillhead – the area of existing and future minerals development with its excellent transport links – is already so very able to serve this part of Devon without any input from Straitgate, so very able to serve future markets before knowing whether the Straitgate application will be successful, there is obviously no need for material from Straitgate, and obviously no need to haul sand and gravel a total of 2.5 million miles in the middle of a climate emergency. 
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ECC Quarries Ltd v Watkis (HM Inspector of Taxes)

Goodness. Who would have thought there was any more to know about Straitgate and its minerals' past?

ECC Quarries – which became part of Aggregate Industries in 1997, following an all-share takeover of Camas by Bardon – purchased Straitgate Farm in 1965 from Sir John Kennaway. The purchase was speculative; the land had no planning permission for the winning and working of minerals. Fifty-six years later, Aggregate Industries is still trying to win permission.

We’ve known that a planning application to quarry Straitgate was submitted in 1967 and refused following a Public Inquiry in 1968; details can be found here. What we didn’t know was that the costs related to that application were the subject of a High Court battle in the 1970s. 

ECC Quarries’ case centred around: 
Whether expenditure incurred by the Company in connection with applications for planning permission to extract sand and gravel from land owned or leased by the Company was to be disallowed in computing the Company’s income for corporation tax purposes on the ground that the expenditure was capital expenditure; 
The company argued: 
...expenses incurred by the Company in connection with the planning applications relating to Blackhill, Colaton Raleigh, Straitgate Farm… being £26,141… was of a revenue nature deductible in computing the Appellant’s profits for corporation tax… [and] that the expenditure did not create any asset.
HM Inspector of Taxes disagreed, and so did the High Court. ECC lost the case: 
For the Crown it was contended that the expenditure was incurred to obtain raw materials over a long period and was therefore incurred not in earning profits but in order to make profits possible; that the acquisition of planning permission to work minerals was in the nature of the acquisition of a right or creation of a new asset; alternatively that it was an improvement of existing assets; thus the expenditure was capital and not revenue expenditure. The Special Commissioners held that the expenditure was capital. They considered that the correctness for tax purposes of the accountancy practice of debiting the costs of planning applications to revenue account depended on the correctness of their decision on the question of law. 
Held, that the expenditure in connection with the planning applications was incurred for the purpose of securing a permanent alteration to the nature of the land which the Company owned or occupied; it was a lump sum and was intended to procure an enduring advantage static in nature in the sense that it was not the planning permission which would produce the profits but the subsequent operations of working and winning the minerals. The accountancy evidence was not sufficient to persuade the Court that the expenditure was of a revenue nature. 
ECC Quarries Ltd v Watkis even became case law, and is now quoted by HMRC: 
Expenditure that would have been capital had it been successful does not change its character merely because in the event it is abortive. ECC Quarries Ltd v Watkis [1975] 51TC153 was concerned with costs incurred in an unsuccessful planning application. 
If the application had succeeded the expenditure would have been capital. In the event the application failed; no asset was acquired or modified (and the company did not rid itself of any disadvantageous asset). 
Brightman J, in the face of unchallenged accountancy evidence, held that the abortive expenditure was capital.
So, not only could the mineral speculators not profit from the 20 million tonnes of sand and gravel resource first thought available at Straitgate – Aggregate Industries is now struggling to win permission to extract 5% of that number – but it turns out the expenses incurred in its failed attempt to secure permission were not even tax deductible. 

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UK construction sector shrinks in January

UK construction output slipped again in January: 
The latest survey highlighted that construction companies have become more cautious about the business outlook. Output rebounded quickly after stoppages on site at the start of the pandemic, but hesitancy among clients in January and worries about near-term economic conditions resulted in a dip in growth expectations for the first time in six months.
In the minerals world, Nigel Jackson, CEO at MPA, warned:
2020 was the most challenging year any of us can recall, and recovering from it will continue to take time. 
The MPA reports that sales volumes were significantly lower in 2020 compared to 2019: 


What's the situation in Devon? Despite a Swiss multinational still intent on chewing up a greenfield East Devon farm for who knows how little material – we still don't have sand and gravel sales figures for 2019, let alone 2020. In which case, how can informed decision-making take place?
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How did CO2 reduction figures influence the Linhay Hill decision?

Last month, Dartmoor National Park Authority granted Glendinning permission to extend their Linhay Hill Quarry in Ashburton to allow the extraction of limestone for another 60 years. We posted about it here.

Given that the DNPA – like Devon County Council – has declared a Climate Emergency, it was not surprising that the subject of greenhouse gas emissions was a significant consideration. As the officer’s report says: 
15.2 The NPPF 2019 identifies mitigating and adapting to climate change, including moving to a low carbon economy as factors to help with achieving sustainable development. Chapter 14 of the NPPF is specific to meeting the challenge of climate change. Paragraph 148 requires the planning system to support the transition to a low carbon future, and, amongst other factors, it should help to shape places in ways that contribute to radical reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. 
Could radical reductions in greenhouse gas emissions be pointed to in the case of the Linhay Hill extension? Apparently so: 
15.11.1 ...Linhay Hill Quarry’s location in the central position to the main Devon markets and the distances involved to supplement supply from outside of Devon if Linhay Hill Quarry was to close, will provide substantial savings on greenhouse gas arisings. 
The South West Business Council made the case that: 
6.1.4.3 If we assume that planning consent is refused and that the other three Devon limestone quarries substitute the current output of Linhay Hill Quarry then that would generate c1,348T of CO2 emissions per annum due to increased journey mileage.
Refusing the application would therefore result in greater emissions from transporting aggregates and therefore a more adverse effect on climate and the environment than would otherwise be the case.

In the same vein, Aggregate Industries – in making the case to a council apparently taking the lead on climate change – would have to say: 
REFUSING our application for Straitgate Farm would result in LESS EMISSIONS from transporting aggregates and therefore a more POSITIVE EFFECT on climate and the environment than would otherwise be the case.
Of course, Glendinning had no alternative site to turn to if its application was refused. Aggregate Industries, on the other hand, has more than 30-years’ supply of sand and gravel still in the ground next door to its processing plant at Hillhead – 23 miles away from Straigate.
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CIC: ‘carbon reduction must be built into every aspect of revised planning system’

The government's planning reforms announced last year – the ones the Royal Institute of British Architects warned could "lead to the development of the next generation of slum housing" – produced two responses from the construction sector. 

The Construction Industry Council – the body which represents most of the construction industry’s professional bodies and research organisations – disagreed with the proposals, but stressed: 
...it is vital that any reforms support parliament’s legislated targets for net-zero carbon by 2050. Therefore, carbon reduction has to be built into every aspect of a revised planning system. 

No such common sense from the MPA – the body representing Aggregate Industries et al. No mention about carbon reduction in this press release. It bemoaned the fact that the government's planning reforms had ignored minerals: 
Planning is about more than housing. The minerals planning system already operates differently to other forms of spatial planning, reflecting the nature of minerals distribution and development, which is dictated by geology. Minerals can only be extracted where they occur whereas homes can be built anywhere. 
Homes can be built anywhere? Really? 
 
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Hedgerows: ‘Reservoirs of life’ that can help the UK reach net zero

One New Year’s Day, ecologist Rob Wolton came up with an unusual resolution – to spend the next 12 months studying a hedge 40 metres from his house in the middle of Devon.
He wanted to make a list of every plant, animal and fungus that used it. 
“I thought it would take a year, but at the end of the first one I was still finding masses of new species so decided to carry on for another,” he says. 
That was 10 years ago. After two years of observations he had found 2,000 species – far more than he imagined. The hedge is 20 metres from a pond, 130 metres from a native broadleaf wood, and surrounded by nature-friendly farmland, which means it is probably particularly good for wildlife – Wolton estimates that the hedge supports nearer 3,000 species in total. 
“There is increasing recognition that within intensively farmed landscapes, much of the wildlife finds refuge in the hedges. But they’re much more than just wildlife corridors – they are really important as habitats in their own right,” he says.

But hedgerows are important for other reasons too. Not only do they sequester carbon, retain soil, alleviate flooding, improve air and water quality, they are also part of our cultural landscape, part of our history and national identity. 

Aggregate Industries couldn't care. The company wants to grub up some 1500m of ancient hedgerow at Straitgate Farm – hedgerows dating back hundreds of years, hedgerows up to 4 metres wide, hedgerows that are habitat for protected bats and dormice. 

What would Aggregate Industries replace them with? Here's an example of the company's recent work, courtesy of Devon County Council's recent Hillhead monitoring report. 

Is it any wonder we're in such serious trouble?
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‘Government's relentless push for development is destroying rural England’

We need a national fightback if we are to stop the "orgy of eco-vandalism", warns this Guardian article: 
...the current level of destructive development is a nationwide problem requiring a nationwide response. Taken together, these developments are changing the character of the countryside towards urban sprawl. They are inflicting irreversible damage on wildlife. 
What’s enabling this destruction is the national planning system, which ought to protect local communities, but now disempowers them. Planning has been hijacked by two doctrines. One is that pouring concrete will get us out of recession, the other that there’s a general housing crisis rather than an affordability crisis. Local challenges to these views are steamrollered as merely nimbyism.
Everyone has been talking about discovering the wonder of nature during lockdown and there are constant reports of droves moving out of towns and cities for more pastoral locations... If you are one of the escapees from town, I’d check your new view isn’t earmarked for development.
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How can concrete be made more sustainable?

Concrete is responsible for huge amounts of CO2. The search is ongoing across the world for more sustainable forms of concrete that use recycled materials. Here are two recent advances.

Recycled concrete aggregates made with everything from coffee cups to building rubble offer huge environmental benefits, from reducing landfill and CO2 emissions, to saving natural resources and boosting the circular economy. Despite ongoing improvements however, challenges with matching the strength and durability of traditional concrete have hindered the practical application of these sustainable alternatives. Now researchers from RMIT [University in Melbourne, Australia] have developed a new method for casting prefabricated concrete products made with rubber tires and construction and demolition waste that are up to 35% stronger than traditional concrete.

 
In a study undertaken at the University of Florida, recycled oyster shells were used as an aggregate to form a permeable concrete tile. The shells came from local area restaurants which were sending around 10,000 oyster shells each week to the landfill. The test results showed that after drying, a concrete tile made with oyster shell aggregate had a similar colour, texture and strength to that of a commercial concrete tile. In the case of mortar, a South Korean university study found no significant reduction in the compressive strength of the mortars containing small oyster shell particles instead of sand. Enormous amounts of oyster shells are discarded each year from oyster farms and restaurants. Oyster shells are non-biodegradable and pollute the land and water when discarded indiscriminately.
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Planning officers are supposed to be neutral and impartial

Despite any appearance at Devon County Council to the contrary – for example in relation to a Minerals Plan where inclusion of a site was championed on behalf of a Swiss multinational despite all the glaringly obvious constraints, or a planning application first submitted in 2015 for a quarry at the same site that has been allowed to drag on interminably without meaningful progress thereby putting lives and businesses on hold – planning officers are meant to be neutral and impartial. 


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EDDC seeks public feedback for new local plan

Consultation on the new East Devon Local Plan is open until 15th March 2021. EDDC asks: 
We don’t want to see East Devon ruined by ugly development scarring our landscape, trees and hedgerows pulled down and our wildlife destroyed. Do you agree? 
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Thursday, 18 February 2021

DCC confirms: Hillhead Quarry ‘contains sufficient reserves of sand and gravel’

The quarry earmarked by Aggregate Industries as the destination for processing any winnings from Straitgate Farm already has – according to Devon County Council’s latest monitoring report – "sufficient reserves of sand and gravel."

Sufficient for what you might ask? For Aggregate Industries? For Devon? For evermore?

In the Supporting Statement for the Straitgate Farm application in 2017, Aggregate Industries claimed: 
The Hillhead Quarry mineral deposit comprises 4.2 million tonnes of sand rich sand and gravel with planning permission in an area known as Houndaller. 
Hillhead near Uffculme is the location that had not only 4 million tonnes of permitted reserves but also a further 8 million tonnes of resource nearby. 

Hillhead is also the site to where Aggregate Industries wants to transport any as-dug winnings of sand and gravel from Straitgate for processing – a mere 1 million tonnes in comparison – necessitating a 46 mile round trip for each load, 2.5 million miles in all; Climate emergency? Not at Aggregate Industries. 

You might have hoped that Aggregate Industries – being in the business of digging up minerals – would be proficient at estimating all this resource, but in 2019, we posted AI has lost sand and gravel reserves AGAIN, this time at Hillhead. The reader may remember that Aggregate Industries has a habit of 'losing' resource in this region; 2 million tonnes went missing at nearby Marshbroadmoor and Venn Ottery. Both sites had similar geology to Straitgate and Hillhead, both yielded considerably less than initially expected.

In the 2018 Monitoring Report for Hillhead, Devon County Council wrote: 
4.9 Houndaller contains an estimated reserve of 4.2 million tonnes of sand and gravel and extraction resumed on this part of the site on 16 September 2016. 
Estimated was the salient word. And plainly the estimation by Aggregate Industries wasn’t very good. 

By the time of the 2019 Monitoring Report, Devon County Council reported that the 4.2 million tonnes had dropped to 2.2 million: 
4.2 The current extraction is at Houndaller and the processing in Hillhead. The site has the benefit of consent until 21 February 2037. Current production levels are estimated at 320,000 tonnes per year. 
4.10 Houndaller contains an estimated reserve of 2.2 million tonnes of sand and gravel. Extraction resumed on this part of the site on 16 September 2016. The Schedule 14 review application allowed extraction to continue until 21 February 2037 securing the future of extraction of the remaining reserves at the site. 
We thought the Council must have made a typo. Apparently not. So where, in the space of just one year, had 2 million tonnes gone? In actual fact, a mistake had been made – by Aggregate Industries. According to correspondence from the company: 
The Quarry Manager who hosted the Monitoring Visit on the 19th September 2019 made a topographic error that was recorded in the Monitoring Report; the reserve figure should have read 2.9 million tonnes and not 2.2 million tonnes.
Even so, the company, in its "re-evaluation of reserves", had still lost some 700k tonnes. This equated to more than two years' supply, and very nearly the amount available at Straitgate Farm. How jolly careless. 

Aggregate Industries got a bit stroppy about the whole business, not at all grateful to third parties pointing out the anomaly, instead complaining: 
For reasons of commercial confidentiality it is an accepted principle that individual quarry reserve/sales figures where a Quarry Operator can be identified remains confidential and excluded from Site Monitoring Reports which are published on MPA websites. This principle will be enforced for AIUK sites going forward, notwithstanding that quarry managers may refer to this detail during monitoring visits...
To be quite clear, we will not be entering into any further correspondence with third parties on matters relating to commercially sensitive reserves and sales figures in the future. 
Devon County Council has recently published a new monitoring report for Hillhead. And indeed, in line with that correspondence, gone is any mention of tonnage, either per year or in the ground: 
4.2 The current extraction is at Houndaller and the processing in Hillhead. The site has the benefit of consent until 21 February 2037. 
4.9 Houndaller contains sufficient reserves of sand and gravel. Extraction resumed on this part of the site on 16 September 2016. The Schedule 14 review application allowed extraction to continue until 21 February 2037 securing the future of extraction of the remaining reserves at the site. 
So "an estimated reserve of 2.2 million tonnes" – or "2.9 million tonnes" or whatever Aggregate Industries has guessed this year – is now described as "sufficient reserves of sand and gravel." 

And if that is the case, then clearly there is no more need for a quarry at Straitgate, or anywhere else.
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Thursday, 11 February 2021

‘UK’s first cement-free low carbon concrete block’

SigmaRoc, the construction materials group, has today announced the "UK's first Cement Free Ultra-low Carbon Concrete Building Block": 
Greenbloc is completely cement free, making it unique in the UK market and provides on average a significant net reduction in embodied CO2 ('eCO2') of 77% per concrete block, resulting in the following specific decreases: an average reduction of 1.1kg of eCO2 per concrete block; an average reduction of 2.7 tonnes of eCO2 per average semi-detached house...  
Max Vermorken, CEO of SigmaRoc, commented:   
Our Greenbloc range and brand is the brainchild of our innovation and technical teams. It addresses a key challenge in the building products industry, the embodied CO2 in one of the most widely used building materials: the concrete block.


Cemfree is a proprietary Alkali-Activated Cementitious Material (AACM) that activates pozzolanic materials such as Ground Granulated Blast-furnace Slag (GGBS) and Pulverised Fly Ash (PFA) to create a Cemfree Binder which can replace a variety of cement types to create Cemfree Concrete. 
News of cement-free alternatives may be less welcome to LafargeHolcim – parent company of Aggregate Industries – given it’s the world’s largest cement producer, with carbon emissions to match. 

Cement is responsible for about 8% of the world's CO2 emissions – 1 tonne of CO2 can be produced for every tonne of cement produced. If the cement industry were a country, it would be the third-largest source of CO2 emissions, behind China and the US. 

We have previously posted about other cement-free alternatives – including the use of fly ash – for example here and here.  
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Cattle crossing: More delays likely as AI required to undertake Road Safety Audit

Aggregate Industries’ planning application for a cattle crossing – to facilitate a quarry at Straitgate Farm, with processing 23 miles away and up to 216 HGV movements a day – claims "betterment" for the existing infrequent and irregular livestock crossing by introducing "a new field gate" to allow perpendicular rather than diagonal crossings. 

In Aggregate Industries’ alternative universe: 
The proposed crossing... provides betterment to the current situation in terms of enabling a shorter traverse of the highway, effectively reducing crossing times which both the tenant farmer and road users will benefit from. 
The fact that this crossing would only be needed if a quarry were permitted at Straitgate Farm – to allow the existing dairy herd to access alternative pasture to replace the 90% lost to mineral workings – or that this crossing would close the main route to Ottery and its hospital for an hour every day (4 crossings 15 minutes each) causing traffic to back up at peak times to the A30 Daisymount roundabout has all been neatly and conveniently glossed over by Aggregate Industries. 

Last month, we posted that the consultation period for the cattle crossing application had been extended. At that time, East Devon District Council advised:
We have not had a response from the Highway Authority and the application won’t be determined until we have. I do not anticipate a decision being made until February or March in view of the outstanding consultations. 
This week a response was provided from Devon County Highway Authority, in emails here and here, with the relevant sections below:

16 Dec 2020 Devon County Council to Aggregate Industries: 
I have been consulted by EDDC on the above and whilst I think that the more direct route for cattle crossing, in itself, would be an improvement over the existing. It would be helpful to have a Stage 1 Road Safety Audit for the scheme and ask if you would be happy to provide this. 
18 Dec 2020 Aggregate Industries to Devon County Council: 
Apologies for my delay in replying, but have now spoken to [consultant] at Horizon Consulting Engineers regarding your request for a Stage 1 RSA which I confirm we would be happy to provide. You will recall that the Stage 1 RSA associated with our Straitgate mineral application picked up on the issue of the existing diagonal cattle crossing over the B3174 Exeter Road. Moreover, it was recommended during a meeting with you and your highway colleagues to provide betterment of the existing situation which this application seeks to do. Many thanks for your attention in this matter and we shall undertake the Stage 1 RSA as soon as practicable. 
11 Feb 2021 Devon County Council to East Devon District Council: 
Upon receipt and examination of said Stage 1 RSA, the CHA will be happy to make its Highway Response to the LPA. Sorry that I hadn’t informed [you] of this request earlier. 
So, presumably more delays on the cards – as Aggregate Industries waits for a time that is practicable. 

And is Aggregate Industries guilty of gaslighting the County highways officer? Claiming betterment for this application, the company suggests the officer recalls the initial Road Safety Audit and the word diagonal:
You will recall that the Stage 1 RSA associated with our Straitgate mineral application picked up on the issue of the existing diagonal cattle crossing over the B3174 Exeter Road.
The problem with that? The word diagonal was not raised in the referenced Stage 1 RSA – which recognised a cattle crossing "could be an additional hazard to users of the B3174" – and nor was it raised in the accompanying letter, which summarised: 
If a cattle crossing is considered necessary to maintain the operation of the farm and is viable with the agreement of the Client, the detailed design of the crossing will include the necessary signage to TSRHD and follow the advice within TA 56 / 87 ‘Hazardous Cattle Crossing – Use of Flashing Amber Lights’.
Oh, how Aggregate Industries plays with words.  
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Wednesday, 10 February 2021

Silicosis: the deadly disease caused by quarry dust and respirable crystalline silica

In the UK, the British Occupational Hygiene Society (BOHS) wrote to MPs in 2020 urging them to take action to prevent avoidable deaths and illness caused by exposure to respirable crystalline silica. 

The BOHS said an estimated 2.2 million workers in the construction industry could be at risk of aggressive respiratory diseases, including silicosis, cancer and the risk of tuberculosis. 

And that around 500 UK construction workers die each year just from silicosis. 

While the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine lists the disease as also increasing vulnerability for those infected by Covid-19. 
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Friday, 5 February 2021

Cumbria mine decision shows ‘contemptuous disregard for future of young people’

Leading climate scientist James Hansen has warned Boris Johnson that he risks "humiliation" over his decision to press ahead with plans for the new coal mine agreed by Cumbria County Council.
 

Dr Hansen – the "godfather of climate change" who warned US Congress and the world of the dangers of global warming back in 1988 – copied his letter to John Kerry, special climate envoy to US President Joe Biden. Biden has made climate action a top priority, and will hold a global climate summit in April as a precursor to November's COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. 

Dr Hansen warns Johnson:
In leading the UK, as host to the COP, you have a chance to change the course of our climate trajectory, earning the UK and yourself historic accolades. 
Or you can stick with business-almost-as-usual and be vilified around the world. 
It would be easy to achieve this latter ignominy and humiliation - just continue with the plan to open a new coal mine in Cumbria in contemptuous disregard of the future of young people and nature.
EDIT 10.2.21 

Cumbria County Council has announced it will reconsider this application in light of "new information":
This decision has been taken because in December 2020, the Government’s Climate Change Committee released its report on its recommendations for the Sixth Carbon Budget, a requirement under the Climate Change Act. 

The report, among other things, sets out the volume of greenhouse gases the UK aims to emit during 2033-2037. 

This new information has been received prior to the issue of the formal decision notice on the application.
In light of this the Council has decided that the planning application should be reconsidered by DC&R.
Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace UK, said: 
Any shift [by Cumbria county council] does not let the government off the hook. Ministers should be ashamed of their failure to step in on an issue of obvious international significance. Even if the coal mine is canned by Cumbria, this is still a global embarrassment for the UK in a year when we were supposed to be setting an example on climate action for the world to follow.
However, the group South Lakes Action on Climate Change was sceptical planning officers would change their minds and advise councillors to refuse the application: 
Cumbria County Council will almost certainly be seeking to justify a further decision to approve, as a way of defending themselves from a judicial review.
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Walsh to supply London with secondary aggregate – a waste product from Cornwall

Walsh will bring 400,000 tonnes of secondary aggregate into Tilbury by sea and river each year from china clay producer Imerys in Cornwall. This material – known as Cornish Granite – is a by-product of the china clay industry and is rated as one of the most sustainable aggregates available in the UK.
Joe Gifford, Managing Director of WALSH said: "...our new partnership with the Port of Tilbury means we can bring in Cornish Granite that would otherwise be discarded and turn it into high-quality products to support London’s development and regeneration."
We have posted about this company before, their plans to increase the use of secondary aggregates in the form of china clay waste – of which Devon and Cornwall have hundreds of millions of tonnes blighting the landscape – and their assurances that there was 'no need for any more new quarries':
Our message is clear... quarries should only be used as a last resort. Digging and filling holes in our countryside does not provide a sustainable future for Britain’s building requirements.
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Thursday, 4 February 2021

Report for UK Treasury warns destruction of nature puts world at ‘extreme risk’

A landmark review, commissioned by the UK Treasury and conducted by Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, the Cambridge University economist, has warned the world is being put at "extreme risk" by the failure of economics to take account of the rapid depletion of the natural world, and that almost all governments were exacerbating the biodiversity crisis by paying people more to exploit nature than to protect it:
Prof Dasgupta warns: 
Nature is our home. Good economics demands we manage it better.
Truly sustainable economic growth and development means recognising that our long-term prosperity relies on rebalancing our demand of nature’s goods and services with its capacity to supply them. It also means accounting fully for the impact of our interactions with nature. Covid-19 has shown us what can happen when we don’t do this.
Lord Stern, a professor at the London School of Economics, says: 
The Dasgupta review shows we are running down our natural capital fast, and we will pay the price. 
In 2019, a UN report warned that one million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, that "biodiversity… is declining faster than at any time in human history." Prof Bob Watson, who led that assessment, said:  
The most important thing is that the Dasgupta review was commissioned by the UK Treasury ministry, not the environment department. Hopefully this will mean that finance ministries around the world will acknowledge that the loss of nature is an economic issue, not simply an environmental issue.


What does destruction of nature look like – from a cement industry perspective? Here’s a taster:
 
A cement company blew up the entire hill and all remaining molluscs with it. All that is left of its former habitat is a big hole in the ground filled with water.  
 
Scientists and experts say limestone karst and limestone caves are the most specialized habitats in the Philippines because they often harbor unique species of flora and fauna that are highly restricted in distribution.

 

In November, in a preliminary summary of a survey of the site, a team of seven scientists reported that years of quarrying had “caused the extinction of a number of species”. The cement company, Holcim Vietnam, has said it is helping to supply badly needed raw materials for Vietnam’s booming construction industry, and is working with scientists to offset its environmental impacts.

 
“They said, ‘you can work here from morning until three o’clock, but then you have to leave because we’re going to blow it up’”

 

Oun used to climb high into the mountain’s side, collecting wood and selling it in the village. He would encounter wild boar, monkeys, chickens and snakes. There were rumours of tigers too. Now, even the village cows won’t get close, scared off by explosions that have been known to shake people off their motorbikes.

 
The karsts are full of nooks and crannies that have nurtured highly specialized plants and animals found nowhere else. They are also important to humans, studded with small altars and temples that are thought to be homes to neak ta, landscape spirits in the local animist pantheon. Soon, they will be gone. 

 

We've posted about this issue before, here and here. 

Dr Tony Whitten, a senior advisor with Fauna and Flora International, had documented the problem, warning "this is a global issue": 
 ... Whitten says the cement industry has become fixated with trumpeting the restoration of sites they destroy, rather than taking a rational, proactive landscape approach which would include sustainable management and protection. 
“No cement business has ever admitted the scale of the problem. They tout their biodiversity pages in their websites and sustainability reports with pictures of ducks and frogs and children enjoying the wetlands created from the hills they remove. They give and receive prizes for their restoration work – but do not acknowledge what is being lost.”
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Monday, 1 February 2021

Carbon offsetting: ‘greenwash pure and simple’

Offsetting projects simply don’t deliver what we need – a reduction in the carbon emissions entering the atmosphere.
Offsetting schemes provide a good story that allows companies to swerve away from taking meaningful action on their carbon emissions.

But would you believe it? LafargeHolcim – parent company of Aggregate Industries – is against carbon offsetting too, apparently. 

The company's chief sustainability officer is quoted in the article "Carbon offsetting: How are businesses avoiding greenwashing on the road to net-zero?" The article starts by saying:
With the net-zero movement gathering pace, ever more businesses are turning to carbon offsetting to tackle hard-to-abate emissions. But is this a credible choice, or simply a clever greenwashing tactic?
Never one to miss an opportunity to sing the green credentials of LafargeHolcim – the world's largest cement company with CO2 emissions to match – the officer, in a panel discussion during Day One of edie’s Net-Zero Live 2020, said:
... she is "completely against" using offsetting before reducing emissions, as industry must "fix its own problems"
Bravo. Who could disagree? She goes on:
"Offsetting is a very last resort, to be used once everything else has been done," she said, pointing to the fact that the SBTi won’t verify targets in line with 1.5C unless they involve at least a 4.2% year-on-year reduction, every year, without offsetting. More broadly, the CCC has advised the UK Government that no more than 5% of emissions should be offset internationally on the road to net-zero.
Of course, there’s a tweet to go with it:


But if that is indeed the case, why – as we previously posted – is LafargeHolcim’s UK subsidiary bragging about its carbon credentials in Highways England’s A590 M6 J36 resurfacing project, where the only reason it could boast about "the UK’s first carbon-neutral pavement scheme" was because it had used carbon offsetting to cover 57% of the emissions?
In an industry first... Aggregate Industries purchased a number of credits to offset the remaining carbon on the scheme.
Or is this yet another example of LafargeHolcim claiming one thing and doing another?


And before Aggregate Industries gets carried away, making even more history, let's also remember that the Mineral Products Association – the trade association representing Aggregate Industries and friends – is against carbon offsetting too. Or so they tell us:
The UK concrete and cement industry has developed a roadmap to beyond net zero by 2050 – removing more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it emits each year... 
Importantly, the roadmap does not rely upon carbon offsetting or offshoring emissions…
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Reddit: a ‘breeding ground for targeted disruption of companies’?

It was difficult to avoid the news last week about GameStop, Robinhood and the power of Reddit, how hedge funds faced billions in potential losses having been humbled by an army of small investors buying shares in a failing computer gaming shop that the hedge fund industry had bet against. Much of the discussion took place in the Reddit group r/WallStreetBets which has some 4.8 million users. The action has now moved on to silver.

Will the impact of Reddit stop there? It's unlikely.
 
These investors might remind corporates, platforms and perhaps even fund managers where the money that flows so neatly into their pockets actually comes from.
They might also join together to make stands on issues that really matter. 
 
One Wall Street investor who spoke under the condition of anonymity speculated that these platforms would not retreat back into obscurity, predicting instead that they could become a "breeding ground for targeted disruption of companies", especially those perceived to be behaving badly. The person warned that institutions that do not make good on certain environmental, social and governance standards, for example, could get caught in the crosshairs.
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AI introduces new MD of aggregates division

More change at the top of the Aggregate Industries’ tree. 

For those interested in knowing who's heading up the company behind the crazy polluting scheme to quarry Straitgate Farm, Andy Swinnerton has been appointed:
to spearhead growth of the company’s Aggregates business unit
Mr Swinnerton said: 
I’m delighted to be named as the new managing director of Aggregate Industries’ Aggregates business and look forward to making my mark as the newest Executive Committee member.
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