ViroDecs wins Sustainable Development Excellence Award

Last week at their annual awards ceremony, Holcim Australia and New Zealand awarded the Sustainable Development Excellence Award to ViroDecs, Holcim’s range of readymix concrete to be represented by an Environmental Product Declaration.

ViroDecs came about as a direct result of listening to customers and understanding their needs, as well as the growing expectation for transparency and low carbon products in Australia and throughout the world.

“ViroDecs will assist our business to better understand the environmental impacts of our readymix concrete mixes and provide our concrete customers exclusive access to independent third-party verified life cycle data for CO2e emissions in our readymix concrete for the first time in Australia,” says Cyril Giraud, national development and sustainability manager for Holcim Australia.

The project kicked off in 2018 with a multidisciplinary team including specialists in environment, sustainability, technical, logistics, operations and marketing. Together, the team developed the brand ViroDecs and collected data from more than 190 concrete batching plants and 65 quarries across Australia to meet the rigorous data quality requirements for Environmental Product Declarations.

ViroDecs was launched at the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia’s annual conference in September last year and quickly gained interest from attendees including contractors, government departments and sustainability practitioners. The team have since followed this up with pit-to-pour tours and presentations at the request of a number of the interested parties.

Earlier this year, ViroDecs has been showcased at the Australian Life Cycle Assessment Society and Green Building Council of Australia’s annual conferences.

Next month, in an Australian first, ViroDecs will be registered with the Australasian EPD scheme and will help shape the way the construction industry analyses the environmental impact of buildings and infrastructure.

For more information about ViroDecs, check out their website.

Left to right: Duncan Harris – Executive General Manager Aggregates, Glenn Simpkin – National Sales and Marketing Manager Concrete, Cyril Giraud – National Development and Sustainability Manager, Evan Smith – Environment Manager QLD, George Agriogiannis – CEO Holcim Australia and New Zealand.