Georgetown Symposium on Concrete Environmental Impact
CONCRETE is by far the most used man-made substance on earth; the foundation of our global infrastructure. Concrete production and use is responsible for significant amounts of man-made GHG (plus water resource consumption); yet this issue receives little attention in the climate action discussion. The organizers of the Symposium want to start a discussion on concrete production and use — how to mitigate its environmental impact without losing its crucial role for the built infrastructure.
Big cities are in hyper-growth mode – expanding infrastructure to support a world population projected to surge past 9 billion by mid-century — of which more than 70% will live in urban areas. The United Nations organization is foreseeing that 5 to7 cities of the size of New York should be built every year till 2050. City leaders are challenged to focus greater attention and resources on mitigating the negative effects of indispensable products like concrete, while at the same time supporting smart city infrastructure growth. The Symposium is a strong start at doing just that.
Funded by the Georgetown Environmental Impact Initiative (GEI), the Symposium is novel in its mission to unite experts in scientific research, municipal leadership, sustainability experts, and industry to meet the concrete GHG mitigation challenge. The overall meeting goal is to discuss and fast-track shared directions for the world’s biggest cities to reduce concrete environmental impact in view of growing population and infrastructure-driven demand for concrete use. We are delighted to announce the partnership with sustainability policy leaders like the C40 Cities, USGBC and the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance; industry advocates like the National Ready-Mixed Concrete Association, and cities like our Nation’s Capital and others that will be in attendance.
WHEN: May 10, 2017
WHERE: Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies
ORGANIZERS: Emanuela Del Gado, Marlene Towns (Georgetown University), Roland Pellenq (CNRS MIT), William Updike (DC DOEE), Jason Turner
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