Economy & Market

Indian Cement Review Conference 2025

Published

5 months ago

December 12, 2025

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The ICR Conference explored the theme of driving sustainability through technology, wherein industry experts shared insights on policy, market synergies and technological pathways that are aiding low-carbon, efficient and sustainable construction. Through insightful panel discussions and presentations, innovative and path-breaking ideas emerged that would lead the Indian cement sector towards a brighter, greener future. The Multilogistix Conference was also held concurrently, which comprised building smarter, more sustainable supply chains and digital transformation.

The conference started with the VIP guests participating in the lamp lighting and ribbon cutting ceremonies, followed by a welcome speech by Pratap Padode, Founder, ASAPP Info Global Group & Editor-in-Chief Indian Cement Review; and an address by Sumit Banerjee, Director, JSW Cement and Former MD, ACC and Chairman of Editorial Advisory Board of Indian Cement Review. Guests of Honour Sudhanshu Pandey, Election Commissioner (UTs); Sagar Kadu, Director – Logistics Division, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India; and Sanjay Bhatia, Upalokayukta, Govt of Maharashtra, Chairman of MultiLogistix Committee, also enlightened the audience with their insights.
In his welcome speech Padode pointed out, “Today, we are talking about decarbonisation, which is the theme of our conference and of our annual issue, and we have COP30 going on in Brazil at the same time.
And yes, it’s a difficult subject to tackle in a year or a decade or even a couple of decades, but we are seriously recognising it—probably by force of nature—but we are. And I think government policy is supporting the move to make sustainability a part of the exercise that all companies have to undergo. Infrastructure is on a roll as far as our country is concerned. Eleven trillion rupees have been allocated in our budget, which is still short of what ought to be. We should be somewhere in the range of 16 to 17 trillion, as per the plan made by the government themselves earlier. But we can see visible changes in cities.”

Thoughts on decarbonisation
In his speech, Kadu said, “Today, when we speak about India’s Vision 2047 or the USD 32 trillion economic goal, logistics is playing an extremely important role. As all economic sectors evolve, the logistics sector is also rapidly transforming—adapting to change, embracing innovation, and strengthening collaboration. Conferences like this, and partnerships among stakeholders, allow us to exchange ideas, understand each other’s needs, and build the kind of cooperative ecosystem that lies at the core of government policies such as PM GatiShakti and the National Logistics Policy. Whether it is cement, steel or agriculture, bringing sectors together and learning from industry experience is central to how we design policies going forward.
Cement plays a vital role in major national programmes like Sagarmala, Bharatmala and various Pariyojanas, and therefore seamless infrastructure connectivity becomes essential from both the government and industry perspective.”
Giving insights on the theme, Pandey elaborated, “Collaboration is not just a slogan, it is a realistic path forward, which we all must encompass. The next decade offers unprecedented opportunities for the sector as India’s infrastructure growth history is unfolding gradually.
The alternative raw materials and fuels from industrial by-products like fly ash, slag to agricultural residues and green hydrogen, and the potential to replace carbon intensive inputs is immense. The carbon capture and utilisation technologies and converting it into construction material or chemicals are rapidly evolving. India can be a testbed for all such technologies. Circular economy is another area where we all have to work. The cement sector can play a central role in waste, co-processing, reducing landfill burdens and supporting the Swachh Bharat Mission in a big way. Green financing will give us to access climate finance, green bonds and ESG linked funding, which can accelerate adoption of clean technologies across the value chain.”
“I am very optimistic about what is happening in India. I was part of the team that prepared the Sagar Mala vision and later the Vision 2030 for shipping and ports. I remember deliberating across nearly 250 meetings with all kinds of stakeholders at that time, including the private sector. And now, I am actually seeing the results of that work. PM Gati Shakti is essentially a combination of Sagar Mala, Bharat Mala, the railways—all integrated together. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that there is now a PM Gati Shakti University dedicated entirely to logistics.
It is extremely encouraging to see a university working so comprehensively on this sector. The great work being done is now visible on the ground. I am from Mumbai, and if you have recently visited the city, you would have seen how completely it has transformed. The Coastal Road, Atal Setu, the metro, the Navi Mumbai International Airport, Samruddhi Marg joining Nagpur to Mumbai—all have been completed. Everything we used to plan in the war rooms at that time, whether with the Government of Maharashtra or the Prime Minister’s Office, is now beginning to show tangible results. That is why I am very optimistic about our progress—and cement is at the heart of this progress,” Bhatia expounded.
Later during the conference, Deepak Shetty, Former Secretary to the Government of India and Director General of Shipping, said, “All of us are aware that we are the fastest-growing economy in the world with by far a 6 to 7.7 per cent GDP growth rate, and by all accounts—be it the International Monetary Fund, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, the OECD— all of them prophesy, and the prognosis of all of them is that come 2050 India is poised to become global number two as an economy. That’s well beyond India’s 100 years of independence celebration. We are possibly poised to become number two next only to China, probably overtaking the US.”

Thought-provoking exchange of ideas
The panel discussions spanned across the two days of the conference and were interspersed with individual presentations from industry experts and brand partners. The panels comprised subject matter experts who led the conversation on decarbonisation of the cement sector.

Presentations by industry experts

Across the two-day conference, many industry experts also presented papers and showcased case studies highlighting the numerous innovations taking place in the industry, across different verticals that are helping take the Indian cement sector towards its Net Zero target. The keynote address was delivered by Parlikar who spoke about the importance of adopting circular economy principles to reduce environmental footprint and strengthen long-term economic resilience.

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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

Published

2 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

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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.