Techrete launch sustainable precast concrete product range

Irish-owned Techrete has developed a range of sustainable precast concrete, targeting a 50% embodied carbon reduction. The company, currently celebrating 40 years in business, has been working on the products as part of a long-running R&D programme supported by Enterprise Ireland in its new, cutting-edge batching plant.

Techrete are the largest architectural precast concrete façade specialist in Ireland and one of the largest in the UK and mainland Europe. Techrete’s Irish operations in Balbriggan, North County Dublin, export around 80% of their product to the UK, serving the construction industry as sub-contractors to clients such as construction heavyweights Kier, Mace, Multiplex, Sir Robert McAlpine, Sisk, Vinci and Wates.  

Techrete have a mature strategy to reduce their carbon emissions with an ambitious target of achieving net zero emissions by 2030. Long-standing initiatives such as rainwater harvesting and recycling, effluent neutralisation, solar and thermal energy generation and the planting of thousands of trees have all helped to reduce operational emissions.  

However, the real key to producing a sustainable concrete, is the significant reduction of the embodied carbon of their product and with the publication of the new standard for concrete late last year, Techrete’s options in this regard, have been greatly enhanced. The standard permits the use of tertiary cement blends incorporating lower carbon materials such as limestone filler, fly ash, silica flume and ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS).

To produce these new mixes at scale, it was vital that Techrete replace their existing batching plant with a completely new system, capable of handling these new mix designs and producing higher-strength concrete of up to 100N/mm2. 

Non-executive chair of Techrete, Marcus Sweeney said: "The carbon content of our products has become a key metric on every project, with procurement decisions being influenced by the impact of the facade type on the embodied and operational carbon of the project.  The primary focus of our route to net zero is to firstly use less concrete, by employing the performance gains afforded by high performance concretes, and secondly to use lower carbon concretes, which employ significant amounts of cement replacement materials.  With Enterprise Ireland’s assistance, who have been central to our decision to make this investment, we have developed concretes that achieve both goals, often within the same mix and we are on track to achieving a 50% embodied carbon reduction by 2025".