Giant brickproducer takes a large step towards a CO2-neutral production

As early as next year, the largest European producer of bricks will reduce the CO₂ footprint from its Danish production plants by 35 percent. The company has made a 5-year agreement with the largest producer of biogas in Denmark, Nature Energy. With the agreement, biogas constitutes half of the energy that is used to produce bricks in 2022.

- We wish to take responsibility for the green transition, and with the new agreement, we take a huge step towards our goal of achieving a CO₂-neutral production in 2050. With this agreement, it becomes possible to use bricks in the future. Bricks, which are architects’ preferred building material for facades, will now also become one of the greenest products on the market, states Henrik Dietrichtsen, who is Regional Managing Director Nordics in Egernsund Wienerberger.

- Nature Energy is incredibly proud that our biogas is contributing to make the Danish production of bricks more climate-friendly. This partnership shows how biogas can make an important difference for the industry and the Danish manufacturing companies, who want to replace oil and coal with climate-friendly energy, but who cannot use green electricity, says CEO of Nature Energy, Ole Hvelplund.

Circular economy with a fossil-free and CO₂-neutral energy source

The biogas that will drive the production on Egernsund Wienerberger’s Danish bricks, will for example be produced at the biogas plant, Nature Energy Glansager in Sønderborg. Here, Nature Energy uses biological waste from the food industry and other industries, and residual products from agriculture, to produce CO₂-neutral biogas which hereafter is injected into the gas grid.

- We take the biological waste from society and transform it into climate-friendly biogas which can be stored on the gas grid. When the biological waste has been degassed, it is sent back to the fields as green fertilizer. This is circular economy when it is best. We do everything in a large scale, so we can ensure as large a biogas production as possible, says Ole Hvelplund.

At the same time, the fine-meshed gas grid provides a huge advantage for companies in Denmark, who wish to convert their production with a focus on CO₂ reduction, Henrik Dietrichsen underlines:

- In Denmark, we have a unique infrastructure, which means that we, in opposition to almost all other countries, do not have to establish our own biogas plants locally at the factories. We can therefore start immediately, and we begin by replacing 50 percent of the consumption of natural gas with biogas. We do this even though the demand for green bricks just now has begun to show, and thereby not completely match the substantial additional costs of using biogas.

More initiatives will ensure a CO₂-neutral production

Already today, Egernsund Wienerberger is producing bricks with a significantly lower CO₂ emission than traditional bricks, as the company a year ago launched LESS: A brick with 10 percent less material, but with the exact same building constructional characteristics as regular bricks.

All LESS bricks today are produced with biogas, which lowers the CO₂-emission from the production by 60-80 percent. Furthermore, the company has created an EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) on LESS.

- We are investing broadly in a range of initiatives in both product development, procurement, energy consumption, optimization of the production, and logistics to ensure an ambitious green transition across the group. In Denmark, biogas is a focus area. In Belgium, we are experimenting with electrical ovens, and in Austria, we are experimenting with heat pump systems. We have taken a very big step with this agreement, as it entails 50 percent biogas already from next year, but we will not stop until we have reached the goal completely, Henrik Dietrichtsen finishes.