Daewoo E&C pursues carbon credits through cast-in-place concrete, eyes 32,000-ton reduction

Daewoo Engineering & Construction is pursuing carbon credits for cast-in-place concrete — a first among domestic construction companies — using a low-carbon, high-early-strength concrete it developed in-house.

Daewoo E&C announced Thursday that its carbon-reducing high-early-strength concrete passed the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry's carbon reduction certification review on Sept. 30, clearing both the methodology certification and the project plan certification stages for cast-in-place concrete.

The carbon reduction certification system, operated by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, verifies the greenhouse gas reduction effects of products and projects through a three-stage review — methodology certification, project plan certification and monitoring report certification — before issuing carbon credits.

Daewoo E&C has been pursuing certification for the concrete it co-developed with Halla Cement. With this review cleared, the company has completed the key certification stages required for carbon credit issuance and plans to receive the credits after passing the final monitoring report certification.

The certification carries particular significance because it was pursued using construction and quality data accumulated at actual job sites, backed by expert consulting from Hanyang University's Carbon Neutrality Smart Architecture Center.

The company focused on quantitatively calculating and verifying the carbon reduction effect based on field data, securing the objectivity and credibility of the certification while demonstrating the practical effectiveness of carbon-reduction technology applicable at real construction sites.

Based on 300,000 cubic meters of the carbon-reducing high-early-strength concrete applied at job sites, the company expects to cut carbon emissions by approximately 32,000 tons. Once it receives the carbon credits after clearing the monitoring report review, Daewoo E&C is considering trading them on the voluntary carbon market or using them to voluntarily offset greenhouse gas emissions from overseas operations.

The government announced a plan in April to develop a Korean-style voluntary carbon market and has been laying the institutional groundwork — including drafting related legislation and building a market within Korea Exchange — with a target of launching the market by the end of this year. Daewoo E&C plans to get ahead of that policy direction while expanding the environmental value of its domestically developed carbon-reduction technology to global operations, strengthening its ESG management and carbon neutrality capabilities overseas.

Daewoo E&C had previously become the first domestic construction company to receive an Environmental Product Declaration and a low-carbon product certification from the Ministry of Climate, Environment and Energy for the concrete. The company has been broadening the application of its carbon-reduction technology.

"Passing the methodology certification and project plan certification — the core procedures of the carbon reduction certification — is a significant milestone in objectively verifying the greenhouse gas reduction effect of our carbon-reduction technology," a Daewoo E&C official said. "We will complete the remaining monitoring report review as quickly as possible, secure carbon credits for cast-in-place concrete as the first domestic construction company to do so, and actively use them to advance carbon neutrality."

Meanwhile, Daewoo E&C has set carbon neutrality as a core pillar of its medium- to long-term strategy and is working to secure the technology and execution plans needed to achieve it.