TALKING TRUE SUSTAINABILITY
As Kilsaran launches its new electric concrete trucks, Ken Mulkerrins talks to Irish Construction Industry Magazine about investing in sustainability, shifting perceptions and celebrating 60 years in business
In April this year, Kilsaran launched two new electric concrete trucks as part of its commitment to sustainable transport solutions. The launch was the result of almost a year of collaboration with Volvo, who utilised a simulator tool to see if an electric cement mixer truck was a viable concept. “Up until our launch, there were no electric concrete trucks in either Ireland or the UK, which meant there was limited data on whether we could make them work. Cement trucks require a significant amount of energy; even when the truck isn’t moving, the bottle needs to keep turning to keep the mix agitated. We gave Volvo about six months of logistics data including typical distances travelled per truck, weights carried for two of our Dublin city plants etc and they fed that data into their simulator tool. The results showed an electric cement truck was viable so it was all systems go,” said Ken Mulkerrins, Group Head of Innovation & Sustainability at Kilsaran.
The two trucks are based at the company’s Ringsend plant and are proving popular with customers, says Ken. “The only problem we have is that our customers want their deliveries in the concrete trucks, but we only have two! We plan on getting more but first, our plan is to run the trucks for 12 months and collate our own data around average weights carried, distances, charge times etc. Once we have that information, we can look at adding more to the fleet. They’re obviously a huge investment; they’re about two and a half times the price of a normal diesel truck, but they mark a big step in our dedication to environmentally responsible practices and for that reason, we’ll be investing further.”
An overnight charge yields between 180km and 280km but that’s dependent on traffic, delays on site and the weight a truck is carrying. Drivers can also plug in during their lunchbreak for a charge of up to 70% within an hour. Initially, drivers were anxious about driving the trucks. “They were worried about range, about whether they would get stuck on a site with a bottle full of concrete. That hasn’t happened and their experience has been very positive.” The trucks are also fitted with a GSR2 safety pack and lower passenger door windows, both of which satisfy the new EU General Safety Regulations. These features make the vehicles particularly suitable for city deliveries where there is more pedestrian and cyclist traffic.
Decarbonisation plays a major role across the entire Kilsaran business, so much so that each department has its own dedicated R&D unit. The new electric cement trucks further demonstrate the company’s commitment to sustainability and to altering the perception that concrete is bad for the environment. “So many construction companies like Kilsaran are trying to decarbonise and lower the carbon in the products they manufacture. Also, when you take into account the durability and longevity of concrete and the fact that concrete structures last in excess of 100 years, the reality is quite different to the perception. It’s up to us in the industry to educate people and to continue to make our products as sustainable as possible.”
Putting sustainability at the heart of the business means examining each individual area. Alongside electrifying the fleet, each product line has its own R&D lab, tasked solely with lowering carbon across the range. “Innovation is key when it comes to making our products sustainable. An example is our dry products. Traditionally, we would have dried our sands with diesel. Huge investment has gone into our plants to retrofit the burners to LPG. By taking that step, we reduced CO2 emissions by 45% overnight.” On the concrete side, the R&D team are making great strides in reducing and almost halving the CO2 footprint of Kilsaran’s concrete mixes. “All the paving we use is 100% recyclable and contains a minimum of 12% recycled paving. The paper bags we use for our dry mortar products are 100% recyclable and 100% biodegradable. In addition, every bit of plastic we use for packaging has to have a minimum of 50% recycled content.” No Kilsaran truck on the road is older than six years. “All our drivers are also sent on eco driver teaching courses, so they learn how to drive the truck to the best of its efficiency. Since that commenced in 2017, we’ve seen a 22% reduction in the litres of diesel being used to carry a ton of product. When we’re using less diesel, we’re emitting less CO2.” From an emissions point of view, Kilsaran has set a scope 1 and 2 emissions reduction of 37% by 2030. “That’s in line with the global emissions reduction initiative for the cement industry. We’re well on the way to achieving that.”
Clients are also beginning to look for greener building materials. “Every phonecall we get from a client, they’re looking for lower carbon alternatives. Sometimes, customers will specify greener products but when it comes to price, they might opt for the traditional alternative. That is changing though and the European Green Deal is really driving that in terms of the cost of finance. The greener a company can make a project, the cheaper their line of credit will be.”
Ken joined Kilsaran as Technical Manager 15 years ago. In 2022, he was appointed to the role of Group Head of Innovation and Sustainability. “The board saw a fit between the two; all the innovation we do has to have an air of sustainability to it. There’s no point in making great products if they’re going to impact the planet in a negative way.” Shifting the perception that concrete must be bad for the environment is one challenge Kilsaran is tackling this year. Another is around the regulation and standardisation of recycled materials. “There are a lot of recycled materials that we can and do use. There are a lot more that we could use but before that can happen, building regulations and standardisation of products need to be brought up to speed. If we were producing a concrete or mortar in the UK, we’d have a minimum recycled content that we must include. Here, there’s no minimum but there is a maximum. There’s a big contrast there and I think we’re lagging behind the UK in that respect.”
The newest arm of the Kilsaran business is its raw materials and recovery unit. “When any new site is starting up, you’ll always have a lot of topsoil and subsoil which is classified as waste and taken straight to landfill. We’ve carried out a lot of research and found that for every ton of soil that’s taken off site and sent to landfill, up to 75% of it is perfectly good quality, reusable aggregates and stone. Two miles down the road, you could have a pit or quarry where they’re excavating and digging up similar aggregates and stones, emitting all that carbon and delivering to the likes of ourselves, but they’ve just landfilled the same material because it was classified as waste. We’re currently looking at investing in plant and infrastructure that can take that subsoil, wash it and grade it and we can prove it ticks the boxes in terms of quality. We had Minister Ossian Smyth down with us a couple of months ago and he agreed that the process of sending topsoil straight to landfill makes no sense so we hope to see change around that practice coming in soon.”
Despite the obstacles, there are exciting innovations taking place, says Ken. “Just recently I was at a conference where they’re growing concrete in a lab using bacteria, calcium and urea. At Kilsaran, we’ve partnered with Canadian company Carbon Cure on a project where we’re injecting carbon dioxide into our concrete and turning that concrete into a carbon sink.”
This year, Kilsaran is celebrating its 60th birthday. The company was founded by the late Patrick McKeown in the village of Kilsaran, Co Louth. Today, Patrick’s grandsons are at the helm. A new state-of-the-art low carbon head office is currently under construction in Dunboyne and once that completes this year, celebrations to mark the company’s 60 years in business will kick off. A solar panel project is also due to commence this year. “As a company we have a lot of roof space so two of our largest factories are going to be fitted with a large number of solar PV panels.
This year, I’m also working on our contribution to the Corporate Sustainable Reporting Directive (CSRD). That will come into force in 2026, based on our 2025 data. We didn’t want to rest on our laurels and there’s a huge amount of greenwashing out there at the moment. We want people to know we’re doing what we say we’re doing.”
As the first company back in 2001 to put GGBS into concrete in Ireland, Kilsaran has always been to the forefront when it comes to innovation. “My aim is to keep pushing and doing what we can. We’re proud to lead the way in sustainable construction; this is only the beginning.”
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Michael McDonnell Managing Editor of Irish Construction Industry Magazine & Plan Magazine
Email: michael@irishconstruction.com WWW.MCDMEDIA.IE