World cement production and environmental implications

• We analyzed world data to confirm the convergence of per capita cement production.
• We found an inverted-U relation between income and cement production.
• Cement production level of China in particular is higher given its income level.
• We argue the importance of demand control and production technological transfer.

Cement is a necessity for economic development, but its production is extremely energy-intensive and leads to excessive pollution including SO2 and CO2 emissions. Since the environmental pollution associated with rapid increase in cement production has worsened significantly in the last decades, it is worth analyzing production trends at the country level. This study primarily explores two questions regarding cement production. The first question deals with statistical analyses to confirm whether per capita cement production converges to some level and to examine what factors determine a country׳s cement production. The second question is to derive environmental implications from the empirical results. To address the first, we apply econometric techniques to see if cement production per capita converges using data from 1978 to 2007. We found that per capita cement production will eventually converge although its levels vary across countries and explored determinants of countries׳ cement production, confirming an inverted U-shape relationship between per capita GDP and cement production (i.e., environmental Kuznets curve). Regarding environmental implications, we argue that it is of critical importance to control excessive cement demand, addressing the distinctiveness and impacts of China. In particular, we show the potential for extremely large amounts of excessive cement production in China and that elimination of this excessive production could result in substantial reductions of CO2 emissions and local pollutants such as mercury and particulate matter without damaging economic development. These results indicate the importance of demand management, as well as technological transfer, in challenging global and local resource and environmental issues.