Gypsum industry news

Members of Eurogypsum, the European Gypsum Association, gathered at the Les Atelier des Tanneurs in Brussels on 27 - 28 April 2022 to formally celebrate the 60th Anniversary of their association, despite a delay of 12 months due to Covid restrictions. Over two days, they participated in meetings and panel sessions reminiscent of pre-pandemic times. Attending the Open Congress session on 28 April 2022, Global Gypsum found the event to be very dynamic and surprisingly open.

The Open Congress began with welcomes from the moderator, Knauf Insulation’s Sian Hughes and outgoing Eurogypsum President Emmanuel Normant, of Saint-Gobain. He introduced the past 60 years as one of ‘enormous change’ for the sector, but this was not meant to be a retrospective. Turning to the next 60 years, Normant said that gypsum’s inherent benefits, including its low embodied CO₂ emissions, recyclability, high degree of safety and ease of use, would make it even more crucial to global development in the future than in the past.

A series of quick-fire presentations from the industry’s big hitters then highlighted a wide range of ways to increase the sustainability of our sector.

Saint-Gobain’s Klaus Birk introduced Gyproc's project to switch its Fredrikstad wallboard plant in Norway to use a 100% electric wallboard production process by 2023. This will use renewable energy, predominantly sourced from hydroelectric power, and lead to a 70% drop in CO₂ emissions. This approach could be applicable to any wallboard plant with access to sufficient renewable power.

Knauf's Jörg Demmich then spoke about a project to extract gypsum from the ‘waste’ from the lithium production process. Even the best lithium ores only contain 3 - 6% lithium by mass, leaving 94 - 97% currently unused. As electric mobility grows, by-product gypsum from the lithium sector could partly offset the expected fall in flue-gas desulphurisation (FGD) gypsum supplies.

Iryna Yermakova introduced the Etex Group's approach to the wallboard plant of the future. One area she highlighted was the potential for prefabrication at the wallboard plant before panels reach the job site. This has the potential, on some projects, to save up to 10% of the wallboard cost, transport cost and CO₂ emissions of the board used. Surely a quick win for contractors.

Nikolai Halle from Cobuilder introduced the Define tool, freely-available to the construction sector. Define will act like the Swift payment system, but for sustainability data instead of financial data. This would unify different sustainability metrics to cut through the confusing terms used by producers and reveal the 'real' performance of different products, rather than how effectively their attributes are marketed.

The keynote presentation, from the former European Commissioner for the Environment Janez Potočnik – ‘The Father of the Circular Economy’ - then highlighted why innovation is key, not only to the future of the gypsum sector, but to the planet itself. At current rates, the mass of man-made material will be three times larger than all biomass by 2040.

To avoid this, Potočnik argued that the entire economy needs to become service-based, rather than product-based. Under such a model, wallboard producers would become part of the ‘building envelope services sector’ rather than selling wallboard. The desire is then to sell wallboard with a long service life, that can be repurposed and recycled, rather than selling ever-increasing volumes of board.Taking this approach across the entire economy would help society to maximise gross domestic product while reducing environmental impacts, eventually decoupling them from each other entirely. Potočnik concluded that nature is already the 'perfect' circular economy. Humans just need to reintegrate into it.

To say that the panel discussion that followed was ‘lively’ would be an understatement. Member of the European Parliament Iskra Mihaylova, speaking the day after Russia halted gas supplies to her native Bulgaria, said that talk of energy independence and solidarity was 'not enough' and that Europe needed to act on the European Union Green Deal, particularly with a view to energy and resource efficiency and security.

Josefina Lindblom, the European Commission’s Policy Officer for Sustainable Buildings for Circular Economy, introduced what she hoped would become the next buzzword: ‘sufficiency’ - properly taking pause to consider what is truly required of new buildings. This includes the need to apply full circularity to renovation projects.

Adrian Joyce, from the European Alliance of Companies for Energy Efficiency in Buildings, asked the audience to think not in terms of 'energy efficiency,' but 'conservation of energy.' The two terms are subtly different, with the latter akin to ‘sufficiency.' Both point to the need to reduce the use of resources, not just the effectiveness which we use increasing amounts of resources.

Tristan Suffys, Secretary General of Eurogypsum, said that gypsum is well suited to fit into the low-CO₂, low-resource-use sector of the future. He called for re-use of derelict buildings, re-purposing and optimising the use of space by building above existing buildings.

The Open Congress drew to a close with a speech by the incoming President of Eurogypsum (and Head of Corporate Social Responsibility at Etex) Jörg Ertle. He told Eurogypsum members that the 'doors' marked 'Green Deal,' 'Decarbonisation,' and 'Recycling' were all 'open' and that they should be making the most of the opportunities behind each. From Global Gypsum’s perspective, it seems that they have burst through each of the doors into the rooms behind. Some are even measuring up for wallboard.

In conclusion, it appears that the European wallboard sector is at the start of a major increase in sustainability efforts. This will be backed by politicians who are keen to decouple their economies from Russia’s and a public that is increasingly asking for change. And, with three major global producers - Knauf, Saint-Gobain and Etex - based in Europe, between them sharing 47% of the world’s wallboard capacity, we can expect to see these innovations spread to other regions rapidly.

Here’s to the next 60 years!