The trillion-dollar question

If you like quiz shows you will love the moment when they ask the trembling candidate the million-dollar question! So much is at stake – and its all in these few seconds …

Now – while we‘re cheering the poor candidate, let‘s take a look at some really big numbers: Worldbank estimates the reduction of the world’s overall GDP by the corona pandemic to be approx. 4%-points annually, which translates to approx. US$ 7 trillion losses for 2020 and 2021. A 2020 report by the WWF states that climate change could cost the world up to US$ 10 trillion by 2050 and in 2008 the NRDC (Natural Resources Defence Council) had calculated the cost of climate change to amount to US$ 175 trillion (that is 175 + 12 zeros) by the end of the century. We haven’t used numbers of this size since the big inflations a century ago – however, there is no inflation as such today! These numbers just overrun our range of imagination and it is hard for me to prevent myself from losing connection to the urgency they refer to.

These days one of the biggest conventions of senior industry executives of the international cement industry will be held – the IEEE-IAS/PCA Cement Conference which features this year’s slogan “sustainable strength through innovation”. Just how much of that is needed! Transforming the industry which produces the world’s most produced product into a carbon neutral, digitized future will change the methods, materials, tools, processes, structures and even business models of this huge world-wide community drastically. Let’s cheer to everybody who is contributing to this endeavour!

Yours truly

Matthias Mersmann

x

Related articles:

Issue 03/2013

VDMA expects no major fluctuations in 2013

In 2012, the German construction equipment and building material machinery industry generated 12.5 billion € in turnover. Construction equipment made up 7.9 billion € of this sum while...

more
Issue 01/2013

Future-oriented products and new solutions

“Sustainable construction – we are actively participating” – was the motto for the 9th Technical Forum held by Lafarge Zement Deutschland on 15.11.2012. Around 200 participants had accepted the...

more
Issue 1/2021

Happy New Year ...

Dear Readers, ... You can’t really say Happy New Year without a certain amount of light-heartedness ... At the beginning of 2020, it was all much easier. There is no shortage of forecasts and...

more
Issue 5-6/2020 ONESTONE CONSULTING LTD.

China’s cement industry under the Belt and Road Initiative

1 The New Silk Road China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), formerly known as “One Belt One Road”, is an economic investment strategy adopted by the Chinese Government to link China to Central...

more

Market drivers and potential in 2014 An Aumund ­perspective

At long last we begin to see the fledgling green chutes of recovery in some developed markets, although southern Europe remains in a delicate condition. The USA is moving forward and China remains in...

more