Black Swan Graphene responds to Toronto update on industrial park concrete pour

Photo: CNW Group/Black Swan Graphene Inc.

TORONTO — Black Swan Graphene provided an update on the industrial park concrete pour discussed in the company’s press release dated May 8, 2023, and to discuss Toronto’s recently announced initiative regarding limits on carbon emission for new buildings.

A shipment of product to Nationwide Engineering Research & Development (NERD) was made earlier this month and is being used in a total of 180 tonnes of concrete using Concretene, NERD’s graphene-enhanced admixture, for the construction of an industrial park near Redruth, Southwest England. This industrial park will offer 14 industrial units ranging from 2,500 and 3,500 square feet, with the graphene-enhanced concrete being used for all external concrete aprons. The pour of 82.5 cubic meters was done with reinforced concrete designed to achieve a compressive strength of 40 to 50 megapascals (MPa) after curing, using the standard “CEM1” cementitious mix commonly used in construction.

In May 2023, Toronto, became the first North American jurisdiction to require lower-carbon construction materials, limiting embodied carbon from new municipal building construction. New “City-owned” buildings must now limit upfront embodied emission intensity (emissions associated with manufacturing, transporting, and constructing major structural and envelope systems) to below 350 kilograms of CO2-equivalent per square metre of construction. For “non-city” buildings, this requirement is a tier 2 requirement, meaning optional, in the latest version of the Toronto Green Standard (TGS), but private developers should take note as tier 2 measures usually transition into tier 1, meaning they become mandatory requirements, when the next version of the TGS is implemented and the tiers are adjusted accordingly.

“Similar standards initiated in California played a pivotal role in sparking the electric vehicle revolution,” said Simon Marcotte, President and CEO, Black Swan. “With the concrete industry being responsible for more than 8 per cent of global CO2 emissions, it is only a matter of time before similar building codes continue to spread across the globe. This shift necessitates practical solutions which we can provide. Black Swan is part of a recently established fully integrated supply chain, including NERD and ARUP, a multinational engineering consultancy headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with 18,000 experts working across 140 countries, to provide turnkey solutions to the construction industry.”