APRIL 30 — The cement industry is seen as a prime candidate for circularity due to a powerful convergence of scale, necessity, and unique technical opportunity. As a top global emitter of CO2 and a huge consumer of raw materials (like limestone) and energy, the industry is under intense pressure to reform. Circularity offers a pathway to drastically reduce its virgin resource use and carbon footprint. The chemical process and high-temperature kilns can use waste from other sectors as both fuel and raw material. This includes: non-recyclable plastics, waste oils, tires, and biomass can replace fossil fuels like coal.

Industrial by-products like fly ash (from coal power) and slag (from steel production) can replace a portion of energy-intensive clinker, the main cement component.

Demolished concrete can be crushed and used as recycled aggregate in new concrete or as a raw material feedstock in the kiln. In short, the industry’s scale creates a vast demand for resources that can be met with society’s waste streams, turning a linear problem into a circular solution.

A recent study by researchers from Strathmore University and Imperial College London, published in Circular Economy and Sustainability, has put a mirror to one of the world’s most polluting industries. The systematic review, “Circular Economy in the Cement Industry: a Systematic Review of Sustainability Assessment and Justice Considerations,” reveals a troubling gap. While the cement sector is enthusiastically adopting circular economy (CE) tactics – like using industrial waste as fuel or recycled construction materials – its vision of “sustainability” remains narrow, often overlooking the very communities it impacts.

The findings suggest that the industry’s CE transition is currently being measured with a flawed ruler. Metrics overwhelmingly favor environmental and technical efficiencies: reductions in clinker content, lower CO2 emissions per ton, percentage of alternative fuels used. These are critical, but they form a “top-down” narrative of progress. What’s missing from the ledger? The social ledger. The review highlights a stark absence of justice considerations – distributive, procedural, and recognitional – in mainstream sustainability assessments.

In practice, this means the benefits and burdens of this industrial transformation are not being justly shared. Distributive justice asks: who gains from cost savings and new green markets? Who breathes the air near a plant using waste-derived fuels? The research indicates that local communities are rarely the primary beneficiaries of the economic gains, yet they may bear disproportionate environmental risks.

Procedural justice asks: are these communities meaningfully consulted about the waste streams being imported into their backyards for “co-processing”? The answer, according to the patterns in the reviewed literature, is usually no. Their voices are absent from the planning table. Finally, recognitional justice asks: are the unique histories, rights, and knowledge of local populations acknowledged and respected? The industry’s technocratic CE discourse often overlooks this entirely.

This creates a dangerous paradox. An industry responsible for around more than 8% of global CO2 emissions is innovating to close its material loops, yet in doing so, it risks creating new social fractures. A cement plant may boast a lower carbon footprint by switching to refuse-derived fuel, but if that fuel’s sourcing and combustion impacts the health and well-being of a neighboring community without their consent, can we truly call it “sustainable development”?

The study argues convincingly that we cannot. The authors call for a fundamental reframing. They propose integrating community-centric indicators into core sustainability assessments. Imagine a CE performance dashboard that tracks not only gigajoules saved but also the number of community co-design meetings held, the proportion of local employment generated from new circular value chains, or health outcome baselines monitored in partnership with local clinics.

A cement plant operates alongside nearby residential areas, highlighting the growing debate over whether the industry’s shift toward circular economy practices is delivering environmental gains while also ensuring social justice for surrounding communities. — Unsplash pic

The imperative is clear. The cement industry’s journey toward circularity is necessary and welcome. But without a deliberate, assessed, and embedded commitment to justice, it builds on an unstable foundation. It risks being a circular economy for the few, perceived as greenwashing by the many who live with its consequences. True sustainability is tripartite: environmental integrity, economic viability, and social equity. The kilns of the future must fire all three.

The research from Onsongo, Olukuru, and Mwabonje is a timely blueprint. It shows that the hard part of the cement industry’s green transition isn’t just the chemistry of low-carbon clinker or the logistics of waste supply chains. The hard part is the sociology. It’s about building inclusive processes, sharing prosperity, and recognizing that a circular economy, in the end, must serve people – not just planetary boundaries.

The industry has the engineering prowess to reinvent itself; now it must cultivate the moral and social vision to ensure that reinvention leaves no community behind.

* The author is affiliated with the Tan Sri Omar Centre for STI Policy Studies at UCSI University and is an Adjunct Professor at the Ungku Aziz Centre for Development Studies, Universiti Malaya. He can be reached at ahmadibrahim@ucsiuniversity.edu.my.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.