Sublime CEO: Standards are not enough; concrete workers reject stiff mixes
Leah Ellis · The complex path to market for low-carbon cement · Oct 17, 2024 · at 20:31
Leah Ellis, CEO of Sublime Systems, explains to host Shayle Kann why technical qualification standards alone cannot guarantee low-carbon cement adoption without job-site labor buy-in.
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“These performance-based standards, the ASTM, the ACI, all of these things are necessary, but not sufficient in the eyes of the concrete subcontractor, because they have to make sure it finishes in a way where it doesn't hurt that man's elbow, because if you get a group of, like, 20 contractors complaining because this concrete is too stiff or not behaving in a way that's not encapsulated by any of these regulations. You end up having sort of a mutiny on the job site where you have 20 dudes complaining to that one guy who's driving the cement truck. So that's the type of friction that you don't want to have in the job place, especially where labor is so important.”
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