EP #155: EPDs, Data Centers, and the New Paperwork Hitting Concrete Producers

This episode is brought to you by GPRS.

Construction professionals know that utilities and concrete reinforcements can cause big problems when you're on the job.

GPRS helps you avoid them.

We use ground penetrating radar to detect rebar, conduit, and post tension cables before you cut, core, or drill.

In our concrete scans are 99.8% accurate.

We guarantee it.

Helping you reduce hits, downtime, expenses, and keep your people safe.

To keep your job site safer, visit gprsink.com.

Ever been on a job before sunrise, generators running, diesel in the air, and concrete trucks starting to stack up?

And you're thinking, do we order the right mud?

Is this mix going to hold up?

Did I ask all the right questions in the pre-port meeting?

And if this thing goes sideways, am I going to know what to do?

That's why we built concrete logic academy.

It's for concrete people want to get better at the work, not theory, not recycle conference slides.

Stuff you can actually use on the job.

Go to concreteschool.co and get free access while it's open.

Again, that's concreteschool.co

What's the most used man-made material on earth?

I'll give you the answer.

Concrete.

This is the concrete logic podcast.

Have you ever stopped to think about the sidewalks, driveways, bridges, or the buildings around you?

They're all made from concrete.

So why don't we discuss it more?

In each episode of concrete logic, we'll explore a unique concrete related topic

with the help of industry professionals shaping the trade's future.

We'll talk with suppliers, contractors, architects, engineers, specialists, and even proponents of competing materials.

We'll get their views on concrete and their visions for its future.

So get ready to mix things up with concrete logic.

Where we turn the spotlight on the material that's everywhere but often overlooked.

This is the concrete logic podcast.

And now, use your host, Seth Tandett.

And welcome to another episode of the concrete logic podcast.

I'm excited today.

We have Liza Sanderman with Pathway.

She's one of the co-founders of Pathways and you're like, what's Pathways?

Well, they are a technology company, I would say, that helps ready-mix suppliers with EPDs.

And you're like, what are EPDs?

Well, we're going to answer that for you too today.

So stick around.

We'll explain what EPDs are.

Why you should care about EPDs?

Who's asking for EPDs?

Yeah.

So stick with us.

Before we get into the topic again, I just want to remind everybody how you can support the podcast.

If you go to the concrete logic podcast.com website, there's a couple of ways you can get a hold of me.

If you're on the homepage and you look at the top of the page,

there's a menu that runs across.

And one of those menu options says, ask Seth.

If you click on Ask Seth, it'll open up an email form and you can fill that out.

And what I'm looking for are topic or guest suggestions.

So if there's something you want to hear, what you want to learn about, please reach out.

Let me know if you don't like the type.

There's another way you can get a hold of me in the bottom right hand corner of the same homepage.

There's a little microphone.

You click on that and I'll start recording your voice right off your computer.

How cool is that?

And you can leave me a voicemail.

People have been doing that lately.

I appreciate it.

I love hearing from the audience.

And then the next way you can help me out is this podcast is supportive on the value for values system.

Liza, she's a fan of Adam Curry.

I'm a fan of Adam Curry.

Some of you will get that know who Adam Curry is and why I brought that up.

But anyways, value for value.

So if you get some value out of the show,

what we do is we ask you to send some value back in the way you can do that is through a donation.

So you click on the donate button and

another page will pop up and you can put any amount in there you want.

It doesn't tell you how much to donate.

I don't know how much the podcast is worth to you.

I shouldn't tell you how much is worth to you.

Tell me when you put that in there.

And then another way you can support the concrete logic podcast

is we also have the concrete logic academy.

If you go to concrete logic academy.com.

You can join there as a member and we have courses in there.

So if you're a professional engineer, you need professional development hours,

you know, education units, we can supply those that there as well.

If you're a concrete producer or a concrete contractor and you just want to get,

you know, want to learn more about the industry and things that you can actually use

on the job.

You can go there and learn there.

We have we have courses quizzes.

We have resources.

We have a place you can post your question.

So if you have a question that maybe you don't want to put out on LinkedIn,

but you want someone within the concrete community to help you out.

There's a place to post those questions.

Please check it out concrete logic academy.com.

That's I think that's all I got Liza.

Liza, thank you for joining us today.

Can you you explain or could you introduce yourself a little bit better than I do

and explain what you are up to over a pathways?

Well, first of all, so thank you so much for inviting me on here and for everything

you're doing to kind of push the push the industry forward.

I absolutely love the work on the concrete academy, especially.

I guess, you know, you already introduced me.

Well, I'm a huge material nerd and I think of my mission as building great technology

to make the life much easier for everyone who's out on the front lines

actually building our societies and really practically.

I do that through helping generate a lot of this documentation you need today

and especially these environmental product declarations, right?

That's really where I've started out solving real problems for manufacturers.

Yeah, so let's start there.

What the heck is a EPD?

You said it really quickly.

What does it stand for?

Yeah, EPD, environmental product declaration.

I think of it as like the environmental nutrition facts,

but instead of calories and carbohydrates,

we're looking at chemical and carbon.

Ultimately, what this document, typically a PDF, a few pages long tells you

is of the particular mix of concrete you have put that day.

What is the environmental footprint and what are the other biodiversity impacts

of actually that cubic feet of concrete?

Okay.

And all summarized into a nice document.

And who's asking for these?

Yeah, so typically most of our customers,

I mean, ready mix concrete producers with anything from one plant to 50 plants

have a number of different types of customers who might be asking for this, right?

A lot of where EPD saw originated from was cities or you have like the New York authorities

say, well, we want to reduce the carbon footprint of the big infrastructure projects

we have.

We're building a new airport and we're expanding the harbor.

How do we do this in a way that doesn't break the environmental bank, so to speak?

Now, however, we're seeing this really perforate throughout American society.

And the biggest demand we're seeing among our customer basis from data center,

which also happens to be the biggest growth area in American construction.

You know, well, while you might be looking at the front news and you're like,

you know, I certainly have investors who are like, it's as environmental first

in this product declaration.

Have you not read the news?

You know, you're not following along and I'm saying, well, listen,

this is not about, this is not just about the climate.

This is about good business for very real producers who are trying to win

bits every day out in the market.

Yeah.

So they've been out these EPDs not that long.

It's like a handful of years when I started first hearing about them.

How long have they been around in?

Yeah, they started as more of like an academic exercise, right?

Like how typically a lot of this stuff starts it, the environmental

product declaration is underpinned by what's called the life cycle assessment.

I get it.

Everyone listening now is like, oh, no, not another acronym.

LCA's LCA's exactly.

And what this basically says is, well, figure out what all your input materials

are, figure out how they're transported to your manufacturing site and then

figure out what you do with them at your actual manufacturing site.

And you know, you sum all these together and that tells you what, you know,

for example, what's the waste water production or what's the water that's

been used in this?

So what's the biodiversity impact in our local environment?

What's the global warming?

And that started around 10 years ago, but then formalizing this into

something that actually has, you know, driving, deciding power in purchasing

decisions is really something we've only started seeing the last handful of

years.

Yeah.

And so are they using these to compare concrete to other materials?

Is that what they're doing with the APDs?

Yeah.

They're doing a few different things.

They're both comparing different materials.

And then they're also comparing different concrete from different suppliers.

So what we're seeing a lot often, anyone who makes concrete as already makes

produce, I won't be surprised when I say this.

A lot of this comes from who you're buying your cement from.

The reality is there's a huge difference right now in the market in the

footprint of these different cements.

But there's also a big difference in terms of, you know, your strength,

class, what else you're putting into the concrete SCMs, what do you have

access to in your local environment and how far of a distance do you need to

transport it?

And all of these things are things that drive that ultimate number and how

buyers might be comparing you to other producers.

Okay.

So are you getting data from the cement manufacturers to as far as?

Yeah.

We've loaded into the back end of our platform.

All cement producers in the U.S. and what their respective

EPDs are.

So now you're starting to see it, you know, you're adding the cement EPD

and the amount, the quantity of cement you're using with the EPD of that cement,

the aggregate and the aggregate EPD.

You might be using some ad mixtures or, you know, other component

tree and that's the, that's the big matrix of data that we try to pull in on

pathways and make it a lot easier for for anyone who needs to do this.

Okay.

So there, you have an EPD that covers concrete itself and then each individual

material within concrete, you got EPD as well.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

Basically for every single material, it's like a safety sheet or some other kind

of production, production information, you need that at the specific

component tree level.

Okay.

No, that sounds like a lot of math.

Yeah, exactly.

It's a lot of math and, and, and unfortunately, if we look just a few years

back, or even a lot of producers now, it's a lot of manual work being put on,

you know, owner operator, so QC manager.

So, you know, a driver at the end of that day to then collect all this dates

and make sense of it.

Yeah, when it, when I'm vaguely remembering when it first came out,

it seemed like everyone was using like a generic EPD.

So each producer was using the same EPD.

So there was no difference from producer to producer.

So obviously that's gotten, I don't know, better, where's what, how

everyone look at it, but everybody has a different EPD now.

Is that right?

Yeah, because the reality is the EPD, I think of it as like, it's that

nutrition label, but it's just a mirror of your exact production site.

Right.

And what most producers realized was, well, if I use my actual own data,

it's a lot better than these very conservative averages I've been using,

which means you're starting to actually get wins out of making real

improvements.

And if that can make you, you know, 20% more likely to win that data sense

of job, that's real, that's, that's, that's millions of dollars.

Yeah, that spurred a bunch of questions.

Let's, the question I wanted to ask you next was, okay.

So I'm trying to remember now.

So you're comparing producers, oh, I know what I wanted to ask you.

So EPD, you got EPDs from each material, cement, sand, rock.

What other data goes into a concrete EPD?

Yeah.

So three, this is a three key pieces.

It's hard to say, but we're not over again.

I was a real chunk to a style is putting on myself.

No need for me to make the three here, but it is in fact three.

You need first, all of the input materials.

And that's where, you know, what we get from our, uh, uh, from a

radio mix producers, we just asked them to send us their supplier lists.

They can do this fully on format.

We will then match it with all data that's been published in the US to make

sure we kind of have the right input.

So that's one input materials.

Number two is how it was transported to your site.

We can do most of that as well because we know where most of most suppliers

are located, but did this come by barge?

Did it come via terminal?

Did you happen to get some end out of yet nan via terminal?

And then, you know, transported part of the way or by some other means.

And then what actually happens on your site, you know, your water bill,

your fuels, your electricity, anything else that goes into your production.

If you have those three pieces of data, you basically have

a perfect mirror of your production process.

And I was on a call with a radio mix producer a few weeks ago who saw our

platform and who said, well, that's just my production process.

And I said, that's exactly what an EPD is.

It's just summed up what your production process actually is.

If it looks different than your production process, something has gone wrong.

I gotcha.

So you're, you're getting utility information where their power comes from.

So how their power generated.

Does that affect the EPD?

Yeah, it does because the reality is that there's a huge difference

and the grid mix and then how power is generated across, I mean,

even from city to city, right, neighboring plants can, can look different

if they're tied up to a different grid.

So it's, so you would have a difference between plant to plant,

but also obviously region to region as well.

But what's the wind owners said data center?

We won't name names a hyperscaler is asking for an EPD.

Is there, are they comparing producers to each other?

Or is there a bar that they say they want to be under as far as the

environmental impact of that particular concrete mix?

Does that question make sense?

Yeah, it makes a ton of sense.

It's like, what are the buyers actually asking for here?

Right.

And what are they mentioning against?

And unfortunately, the answer is it varies a little bit from hyperscaler

to hyperscaler and it varies a little bit from GC and architect working

with that particular hyperscaler.

But we see two different things.

We see, actually, we see three different things.

We see in some regions where EPDs are still so nascent that just having

the document means you're beating out your competitors because you

might be the only one who puts in an EPD with the bit.

Great.

That shows hyperscaler.

Well, you've gone to the effort of actually understanding what your

production process is, at least we have some data.

And, you know, this gets a little bit like accounting.

They need to just report something back, having something is better than

nothing.

Then we see the next level where we have different benchmarks for the

different mixed strengths being put out by NRM and NRMCA and, you know,

also GCCA, so global cementing and concrete association.

And these benchmark are increasingly being used to, you know, think

about what is reasonable for different strength classes.

The reality is, though, you know, anyone who's in this business knows

this.

It's not like a hyperscaler can be like, well, now let me just get

concrete from someone who is 10,000 kilometers away.

So you got the landscape you got in your local region, which is

why you typically end in that last category, which is it becomes

about comparing versus your versus kind of anyone else who's in

that region and becomes a really localized comparison.

Okay.

And then you mentioned earlier, life cycle analysis.

So when does that start for the EPD and when does it end for

that EPD?

Yeah.

We do it for a year of data.

So we basically average out, you know, you'll wall to use it

across a year and then we say, well, over the last year, how

much did you produce in total?

And that becomes kind of what you think of as the base data

behind.

But then every time you produce a new mix, you know, a new mix is

a slightly different ratio of the same things and new EPD is

generated.

Once you're on to our platform and been unborted, typically what

we do is we integrate into QC systems.

So let me take a good example with our friends at Stonefront.

Our goal is actually not that anyone necessarily goes to pathways.

Once they're set up, they can do everything they need to do in

their native QC system.

No additional clicks push the data.

We pull that makes information into our system.

We generate the EPD and we push it back to them that way.

It can become fully integrated into the existing flow.

We all know how busy people who make concrete are.

They don't need additional software or so interfaces.

I got you.

I guess, let me reframe that question.

So lifecycle analysis for concrete for that EPD is it start

from when a shovel is putting a ground to pull that rock out

of the ground for that concrete?

Yes or no or yes, yes.

The short answer is yes, it goes all the way down to the data

input of what like aggregate query did you get this from the

reality is that data might sometimes a little harder for our

actual producers to get and we are able to provide most of

that.

But yeah, it does cover the full material.

Okay.

So from from pulling rock out of the ground, saying sand out of

the ground or wherever you're getting your sand from where and

then as far as cement is it pulled from?

Do you have you seen that cement?

I've assumed you've seen a cement EPD.

Where does their where does their measure start for lifecycle

analysis?

Yeah.

So for cement EPD, what typically is the most intensive part

of creating that actual analysis and we at pathways have created

multiple is around clinker production.

I mean, that won't surprise anyone who's kind of been close to a

cement site.

That's where that's where the heat is going.

And what obviously is key there is what are the different inputs

mainly again here around energy sources.

So on the cement site, it's less about suppliers for concrete.

It's really about suppliers for cement site.

It's more about what's the fuel usage?

Okay.

All right.

So I understand the start.

Okay.

And then that EPD for concrete, it measures everything up to the

point where it's produced and put in place, right?

Is that where the EPD ends going forward in the future?

Do you think EPDs will be expanded to include how long

concrete lasts like a certain mix actually last like we all

assume concrete when it's made a last for decades at a time.

What I'm asking is for concrete that certain mixes out

there in the world may not last that long.

Do you think that'll be considered an EPD one day or is it?

Yeah.

Yes.

So in Europe, we see standards that are now expanding to what

they call end of life, right?

So how likely is it, you know, then a producer has to figure

out from there by what's the average recycling rate?

So how long does this actually last or what's kind of demolition

rate for?

We all know this also really varies by strength class, right?

And by end use, the reality is today, this is mostly assumptions.

I then it's assumptions based on some data.

But again, what what we see the focus on and what I frankly as

like a very pragmatic, pragmatic kind of business owner,

think about is what's within the power of the producer?

Because what happens once you've solved that concrete and what's

it's put, it's kind of, you know, it is kind of out of your

hands.

What's not out of your hands is how do you recycle your water?

Where do you buy your fuels from or which cement are you using?

That's very much within your hands.

And I think we sent a lot of our focus and also as we give

input and feedback to like regulatory drivers in the space that

that's kind of where our focus is.

Yeah.

I was more curious on the different mixes, but also when

folks, I had by the time this comes out, I had Doug Mooton on

the show, he's a consultant for many of the data center builders

out in the world or owners.

And what we were, we, I think we briefly talked about and you

mentioned it earlier is comparing concrete to other building

materials.

So the life cycle analysis gets to the point where that

material is delivered on site, right?

Yeah.

And then the and then what was the term used for the

Oh, end of life.

End of life.

That's what it was.

End of is to have an acronym for that one too.

They should have we might come up with one right here.

Seth just to get another one in the mix.

I just there's still there's still information out there

that bad mouse concrete.

And you were asking me before we hit record why I started

this podcast and what this is one of the reasons is that

people are misconstruing the carbon footprint of concrete.

They think it's it's bad for the earth because it has

such a large footprint and it's essentially because of the

volume used across the world.

It's a very.

It's on most used material in the wealth like I might like

the intro of the podcast is.

Yeah.

So that there's a difference between volume and the actual

intense energy it takes to produce a building material.

You're you love material.

You know this.

You worked for steel company before you know where I'm

going with this.

That's so there's there's there's more work to do on that.

Sort of thing if that's going to be a if that's going to be

a desire or a requirement from these these folks that are

building data centers or whatever large commercial projects

is end of life is going to be the next thing right.

It's super interesting.

And I mean we've all read the news of like well Amazon is

going to build a data center out of what all you know

we're going to see this like mass timber structures or we're

going to create different types of foundations.

I think the thing and I'm a material girl like I love

materials.

I think they're awesome.

I think it's it's critical that we build the right

infrastructure and the right housing and what people what

people ultimately need.

But I'm also really pragmatic like I don't think that there

is a silver bullet to any of these challenges.

I think there's a lot of slivers of silver and the reality

is if we can shift one product like we've shifted you know

had concrete producers on our platform that have you

know change supplier choice in terms of who they get

cement from and their footprint drops by 20% that has

real signals down their supply chain.

Yeah.

And that is a huge impact like you know that's a major

major impact and I think that story is often lost in you

know the black and white.

Yeah.

That's sorry to put you on that tangent but well all right

so it sounds like you well recognize that a lot of what's

built in the United States is built by producers that are

have you know they're from two to ten folks within the

entire plant you know the dry the owner the owner of the

plant he he's jumping in a truck and driving the truck on

the road.

So if they want to get involved with projects that require

these EPDs it sounds like with the data that's available

out there that they have more we can work with that right.

I absolutely and this is like the part that like keeps me

up at night it's that you know a lot of our competitors

or what we see out in the in the market basically requires

a owner operator to be an IT department for week and I'm

like a week that's a week of loss of sales dispatching

site visits like you have any idea how expensive that is.

So one of our big philosophies and there's a few different

tenants through this first we've built technology so we can

take data in whichever format our customers have it.

That means you got your fuel bills just send us the fuel

bills no need for you to sum it up in an Excel no need to

like do the manual work we we've built tech on our end

and this is where like I don't think there's any need

in like flashing our bay I but it can be really helpful

on our back end to actually deliver it number two we

always only a phone call away most people still prefer

to do things in a phone first way and there is nothing

worth worse than having like you know being able to have

five minutes between different site visits or different

dispatches and action now is when you could communicate

it and you're stuck having to you know email someone

coordinated teams meeting to provide some data provide

some information and you know these are like you know

very small things but it's why we've been able to unboard

and you know just just got pulled pulled this data

before this call like 25 producers in less than 30 days

right from like us even signing them up to having fully

verified documentation that they can just generate in

their QC systems on our platform and like I just I don't want

own operators were out there doing real work to be stock

putting in data in Excel spreadsheets or templates.

It's just such a waste of time.

Yeah it's definitely if you can feed I assume the backbone

is some AI that y'all built but it's amazing what you can

do with AI if you give it the right information definitely

don't want to send it out on a dog like a dog and tell it

tell it to no hallucination I'm like we're just talking

good old fashioned machine learning scraping real data.

I was like let's not make that data here.

Yeah yeah but like crunching real numbers that's good.

Yeah so is there in the in the future where do you see

these EPDs going is there is there even for folks that are

out there that are familiar with EPDs and kind of have the

process down do you see anything coming down the pipeline

here that you think people should be aware of and making

sure they're collecting that data as well.

Yeah I mean I think there's a few different things I think

first of all it's like we did quite an expansive survey

with concrete producers and 50% of them are saying they're

expecting EPD publishing to increase this year I mean

that's just a you know someone saying this doesn't feel

like a wave it feels more like a tsunami and one of the

things that you know I just told briefly about QC system

integrations ensuring that you then get support as a small

producer in a way they really works well for you you know

this again is like you know set set set set with all all

the respect and admiration I think you know average average

age is between median age is 45 to 50 using systems and

views for a long time like let's get something that plays

nicely with those existing systems we can put all the fancy

technology on the back end but but make sure it works really

well in your existing workflow so that so that you can keep

your operations running and then I think this awareness

frankly that increasingly buyers are looking at the actual

numbers in the EPD which means you might have to start

thinking about you know what's my different supplier options

because this can start mattering matter for for actual

deals but as far as do you see anything like like the type of

fuel you use at your facility or anything like that that is

beyond a current APD do you see anything like that coming down

or have seen that or are we still just trying to grasp the

current APD environment right now yeah no I mean the the

the relatives I would think of the environmental product

declaration as just the sum of what you're actually doing

and everything you're doing that can improve your production

this is kind of like a new measure of how your production is

doing so new fuels that are coming in which we are seeing

a lot of drive down that number that makes you more

competitive but the framework of the EPD stays the same okay

like how you calculated the science of that doesn't really

change you're just getting new inputs right so we're seeing

new cms come up every day I'm sure you're getting you're

getting a bunch of bunch of these as well coming coming in

you win bucks and they're just a new input right calculation

matter framework stays the same okay all right well did we

cover everything that you want to cover today you can always

come back you're very I like you you're very excited about

concrete so you definitely love it well if if folks want to reach

out to you and learn more about what you do what's the best

way well I said we're we're really phone first so I'm going

to my phone numbers eight four five five nine nine four eight

eight and then can also catch me on my email which is

Lysa L E I S E at pathways AI dot CEO you know Google pathways

EPDs and and will come up and you can catch us on all kinds of

media yeah and if you all didn't catch that I'll put it a

link to her in the show notes for the episode so you can

check that out as well why is that I appreciate you coming on

the show today thank you was such a privilege and pleasure

thank you so much you're welcome and folks until next time

let's keep it concrete thanks for joining us for another

episode of the concrete logic podcast if you got value from

the show here's how you can provide value back to support

the show visit concrete logic podcast dot com and click the

donate button to send value back all dollar amounts are truly

appreciated and now to close out the show here's Mike

Dunton

bring that a lot of things couple hours

open up the side puts a diesel in the lights and wakes up

trucks roll up and this ain't how those folks live their lives

sweat working overtime while the time their ties for the

nine to five so we're out here changing these skylines

with one iron and mud we work hard for color give thanks to

the Lord above and make a man do something you can't

prove hard work calls for a drink or two expect more

it's written in our blood with food

iron and mud from the swan's to the city from the long

star heat to the woods of the Georgia pine

you don't pause and girls you wait afraid to get dirty food

clean if you want to see the fire in a roll man's eyes

the hot summer sun while the boys caught the days and nights

working hard to get that job done with food iron and mud

we work hard for dollar give thanks to the Lord above

the color of the colors ain't white or blue we're all gray color

through and through expect more it's written in our blood

with food iron and mud

we work hard for color give thanks to the Lord above

and make a man do something you can't prove hard work calls for a drink or two

expect more it's written in our blood with food iron and mud

with food iron and mud with food iron and mud

we work hard for dollar give thanks to the Lord above

and make a man do something you can't prove hard work calls for a drink or two

expect more it's written in our blood with food iron and mud