Economy & Market

We are deeply focused on localisation

Published

5 months ago

November 17, 2025

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Vijay Mishra, Commercial Director, Knauf India, discusses building a blueprint for a low-carbon future in India’s construction ecosystem, by integrating recycled gypsum, energy-efficient production, and green-certified solutions.

As India’s built environment continues its rapid expansion, the conversation around sustainable construction has moved from concept to necessity. Knauf India is combining innovation, localisation and circularity to help reduce embodied carbon across the value chain. Their mission is clear: to make every product lighter, cleaner, and more future-ready. In this interaction, Vijay Mishra, Commercial Director, Knauf India talks about aligning the company’s growth with India’s green building goals.

How does Knauf India view its role in supporting emission reduction and sustainability across the broader construction and materials ecosystem?
At Knauf India, we see our role not just as a product manufacturer but as a partner in building a low-carbon future for India’s construction ecosystem. The built environment contributes significantly to global emissions, and the only way forward is to rethink how materials are designed, produced, and used. We’re working to embed sustainability right through the value chain — from using synthetic and recycled gypsum to reducing process waste and energy intensity in our plants. The idea is simple: if every component of a building is engineered to use fewer resources, last longer, and be recoverable at end-of-life, we can collectively make a big dent in construction-related emissions.

Circular innovation is central to your strategy. How are recycled gypsum and take-back programs reducing environmental impact?
Circular innovation sits at the core of how Knauf operates globally, and we’re bringing that same philosophy to India. We use synthetic gypsum, which is a by-product from industrial desulphurisation processes, in place of mined gypsum — this helps reduce extraction and keeps valuable material in circulation. Internationally, Knauf runs ‘Take-Back’ programmes that collect gypsum board waste from construction and demolition sites, recycle it, and feed it back into production. In India, we are exploring similar models, starting with pilot initiatives around waste segregation and recovery from large projects. Gypsum, unlike many materials, can be recycled endlessly without losing its properties — and that’s a huge opportunity for our industry to close the material loop and bring down overall environmental impact.

What contribution can material reuse and recovery models make toward lowering embodied carbon in building materials?
Material reuse and recovery models can transform the carbon equation for construction materials. Every tonne of gypsum we recycle means one less tonne to mine and process — and that translates to meaningful carbon savings. Beyond that, when materials are designed to be taken apart, reused, or reprocessed, we reduce demolition waste and the need for virgin inputs. The embodied carbon of a product doesn’t only come from manufacturing — it’s tied to the entire lifecycle. If we design materials that live longer and return safely into the cycle, we make our buildings far more efficient from an emissions standpoint.

Plasterboards are rapidly replacing traditional POP — what makes them a more sustainable and energy-efficient alternative?
That’s true — plasterboards have essentially become the default choice for ceilings across most Indian cities today. Twenty years ago, the ceiling market was largely unorganised — dominated by manually produced POP sheets. Back then, the entire market was barely `65 crore. Today, it’s over `5,000 crore, and growing rapidly. This shift has been driven by both economics and sustainability.
POP sheets required labour-intensive casting and drying under the sun — a process that was cheap but highly inefficient and inconsistent. Post-COVID, as labour costs rose and timelines became tighter, the industry naturally moved toward plasterboard systems that are factory-made, consistent, and far less wasteful. A plasterboard ceiling requires less material, produces minimal site waste, and delivers better thermal and fire performance. From an environmental standpoint, these boards are energy-efficient to manufacture, use recycled content, and are quicker to install — reducing on-site emissions and water use.

With India’s ceiling market expanding rapidly, how is Knauf ensuring growth remains aligned with green building standards?
India’s ceiling market still has tremendous headroom for growth. To put it in perspective, plasterboard consumption here is only 0.13 square metres per capita, compared to a global average of 1.4, and over 2.5–3 in countries like Thailand or Vietnam. That tells you how early we are in the journey. But we want that growth to happen responsibly. All our products are manufactured under BIS and ISI-certified processes and align with GRIHA and IGBC green building parameters. Our DewBloc Moisture-Resistant board, for example, is designed for India’s diverse climates — especially high-humidity regions — ensuring durability and lower replacement rates, which directly translates to lower lifecycle emissions. We are deeply focused on localisation — producing closer to our markets, sourcing locally, and designing products suited to India’s building typologies. That combination — localisation plus circular thinking — is what will make this growth both scalable and sustainable.

Can you share how localisation and zero-process waste practices are improving both efficiency and emission performance?
Localisation is key to sustainability. Manufacturing close to our markets reduces transportation emissions, supports local employment, and shortens supply chains. Our plants are designed with closed-loop water systems and near zero process waste, meaning almost everything that goes into production is either part of the product or recycled back. We also source a significant portion of raw materials locally, which not only helps emission control but also aligns with the government’s ‘Make in India’ vision. It’s a practical approach — efficient, sustainable, and economically sensible.

How do government programmes like PMAY influence the demand for eco-friendly and emission-conscious interior systems?
PMAY and similar housing initiatives are redefining the way we think about affordability and sustainability.
Earlier, the focus in mass housing was primarily on cost and speed. Today, there’s a growing awareness that energy-efficient, durable materials actually reduce lifecycle costs. Lightweight systems like gypsum boards make faster, cleaner, and more energy-efficient construction possible, which aligns perfectly with the government’s push for sustainable urban housing.
As public sector projects increasingly adopt green building frameworks, it naturally creates more demand for emission-conscious materials.

What innovations in gypsum technology or material science could further support low-carbon construction?
There is some really exciting work happening globally and within Knauf in material science.
Innovations like bio-based additives, lightweight core formulations, and moisture- and fire-resistant boards are making gypsum systems even more durable and efficient. Another area is design for disassembly — creating systems that can be easily taken apart and reused, which directly supports circular construction. The long-term goal is to create materials that perform better in buildings and are responsible at the end of their life — that’s where low-carbon construction truly begins.

– Kanika Mathur

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Economy & Market

TSR Will Define Which Cement Companies Win India’s Net-Zero Race

Published

2 days ago

April 27, 2026

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Jignesh Kundaria, Director and CEO, Fornnax Technology

India is simultaneously grappling with two crises: a mounting waste emergency and an urgent need to decarbonise its most carbon-intensive industries. The cement sector, the second-largest in the world and the backbone of the nation’s infrastructure ambitions, sits at the centre of both. It consumes enormous quantities of fossil fuel, and it has the technical capacity to consume something else entirely: the waste our cities cannot get rid of.

According to CPCB and NITI Aayog projections, India generates approximately 62.4 million tonnes of municipal solid waste annually, with that figure expected to reach 165 million tonnes by 2030. Much of this waste is energy-rich and non-recyclable. At the same time, cement kilns operate at material temperatures of approximately 1,450 degrees Celsius, with gas temperatures reaching 2,000 degrees. This high-temperature environment is ideal for co-processing, ensuring the complete thermal destruction of organic compounds without generating toxic residues. The physics are in our favour. The infrastructure is not.

Pre-processing is not the support act for co-processing. It is the main event. Get the particle size wrong, get the moisture wrong, get the calorific value wrong and your kiln thermal stability will suffer the consequences.

The Regulatory Push Is Real

The Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules 2026 mandate that cement plants progressively replace solid fossil fuels with Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF), starting at a 5 per cent baseline and scaling to 15 per cent within six years. NITI Aayog’s 2026 Roadmap for Cement Sector Decarbonisation targets 20 to 25 per cent Thermal Substitution Rate (TSR) by 2030. Beyond compliance, every tonne of coal replaced by RDF generates measurable carbon reductions which is monetisable under India’s emerging Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS). TSR is no longer a sustainability metric. It is a financial lever.

Yet our own field assessments across multiple Indian cement plants reveal a sobering reality: the primary barrier to scaling AFR adoption is not waste availability. It is the fragmented and under-engineered pre-processing ecosystem that sits between the waste and the kiln.

Why Indian Waste Is a Different Engineering Problem

Indian municipal solid waste is not the material that imported shredding equipment was designed for. Our waste streams frequently exceed 40 per cent to 50 per cent moisture content, particularly during monsoon cycles, saturated with abrasive inerts including sand, glass, and stone. Plants relying on imported OEM equipment face months of downtime awaiting proprietary spare parts. Machines built for segregated, low-moisture waste fail quickly and disrupt the entire pre-processing operation in Indian conditions.

The two most common failures we observe are what I call the biting teeth problem and the chewing teeth problem. Plants relying solely on a primary shredder reduce bulk waste to large fractions, but the output remains too coarse for stable kiln combustion. Others attempt to use a secondary shredder as a standalone unit without a primary stage to pre-size the feed, leading to catastrophic mechanical failure. When both stages are present but mismatched in throughput capacity, the system becomes a bottleneck. Achieving the 40 to 70 tonnes per hour required for meaningful coal displacement demands a precisely coordinated two-stage process.

Engineering a Made-in-India Answer

At Fornnax, our response to these challenges is grounded in one principle: Indian waste demands Indian engineering. Our systems are built around feedstock homogeneity, the holy grail of kiln stability. Consistent particle size and predictable calorific value are the foundation of stable kiln combustion. Without them, no TSR target is achievable at scale.

Our SR-MAX2500 Dual Shaft Primary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive) processes raw, baled, or loosely mixed MSW, C&I waste, bulky waste, and plastics, reducing them to approximately 150 mm fractions at throughputs of up to 40 tonnes per hour. The R-MAX 3300 Single Shaft Secondary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive), introduced in 2025, takes that primary output and produces RDF fractions in the 30 to 80 mm range at up to 30 tonnes per hour, specifically optimised for consistent kiln feeding. We have also introduced electric drive configurations under the SR-100 HD series, with capacities between 5 and 40 tonnes per hour, already operational at a leading Indian waste-processing facility.

Looking ahead, Fornnax is expanding its portfolio with the upcoming SR-MAX3600 Hydraulic Drive primary shredder at up to 70 tonnes per hour and the R-MAX2100 Hydraulic drive secondary shredder at up to 20 tonnes per hour, designed specifically for the large-scale throughput that higher TSR ambitions require.

The Investment Case Is Now

The 2070 Net-Zero target is not a distant goal for India’s cement sector. It starts today, with decisions being made on the plant floor.

The SWM Rules 2026 are already in effect, requiring cement plants to replace coal with RDF. Carbon credit markets are opening up, and coal prices are not going to get cheaper. Every tonne of coal a cement plant replaces with waste-derived fuel saves money on one side and generates carbon credit revenue on the other. Pre-processing infrastructure is no longer just a compliance requirement. It is a business investment with a measurable return.

The good news is that nothing is missing. The technology works. The waste is available in every Indian city. The government has provided the policy direction. The only thing standing between where the industry is today and where it needs to be is the commitment to build the right infrastructure.

The cement companies that move now will not just meet the regulations. They will be ahead of every competitor that waits.

About The Author

Jignesh Kundaria is the Director and CEO of Fornnax Technology. Over an experience spanning more than two decades in the recycling industry, he has established himself as one of India’s foremost voices on waste-to-fuel technology and alternative fuel infrastructure.

Concrete

WCA Welcomes SiloConnect as associate corporate member

Published

2 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

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The World Cement Association (WCA) has announced SiloConnect as its newest associate corporate member, expanding its network of technology providers supporting digitalisation in the cement industry. SiloConnect offers smart sensor technology that provides real-time visibility of cement inventory levels at customer silos, enabling producers to monitor stock remotely and plan deliveries more efficiently. The solution helps companies move from reactive to proactive logistics, improving delivery planning, operational efficiency and safety by reducing manual inspections. The technology is already used by major cement producers such as Holcim, Cemex and Heidelberg Materials and is deployed across more than 30 countries worldwide.

Concrete

TotalEnergies and Holcim Launch Floating Solar Plant in Belgium

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TotalEnergies and Holcim have commissioned a floating solar power plant in Obourg, Belgium, built on a rehabilitated former chalk quarry that has been converted into a lake. The project has a generation capacity of 31 MW and produces around 30 GWh of renewable electricity annually, which will be used to power Holcim’s nearby industrial operations. The project is currently the largest floating solar installation in Europe dedicated entirely to industrial self-consumption. To ensure minimal impact on the surrounding landscape, more than 700 metres of horizontal directional drilling were used to connect the solar installation to the electrical substation. The project reflects ongoing collaboration between the two companies to support industrial decarbonisation through renewable energy solutions and innovative infrastructure development.