Cemex chief executive Fernando Gonzalez, has been announced as the new president of the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA).
The association announced the move as part of a leadership transition which will see current president Jan Jenisch depart. It comes after Gonzalez was elevated to vice president in 2018, four years after he became the top boss at Cemex.
Gonzalez revealed his key aim was to get the industry working with government bodies to achieve its decarbonisation goals.
“It is a great honour to be president of the GCCA, particularly as we enter this ‘decade to deliver,’ a period during which we must accelerate our decarbonisation efforts,” he said.
“My number one priority as the new president of the GCCA is to collaborate closely with governments and industry to evolve the regulatory framework in ways that promote a more circular, lower-carbon economy.”
Gonzalez recently spoke at the United Nations General Assembly’s Private Sector Forum and urged the public and private sectors to collaborate more closely to develop the regulatory ecosystem so that the cement industry can reach its full potential as a contributor to a carbon-neutral society.
The new association president revealed several other key aims for his tenure, including:
- Encouraging regulation that diverts municipal and industrial waste from landfills to waste to energy solutions, including substitution of fossil fuels in cement kilns.
- Promoting building codes and norms that allow the extensive adoption of lower-carbon cement and concrete products.
- Establishing market-driving carbon pricing mechanisms that incentivize decarbonisation and investment in carbon reduction technologies.
- Seek funding and alliances to develop new technologies that reduce carbon emissions in the cement manufacturing process and accelerate the development and scaling of carbon capture, utilization, and storage technologies.
