CONSTRUCTION activity may be declining rapidly but former CRH executive Donal O'Riain expects to see little impact on his cement business, Ecocem, which specialises in producing low-carbon cement.

The company's plant at Ringsend in Dublin is continuing to operate at almost full capacity and O'Riain forecasts that, even if the downturn continues, its output will only decline by a maximum of 2%.

"To stay stable in this climate is a major achievement. The first half of the year in Ireland has seen a 15% reduction in cement sales. It now looks like cement sales will fall further and we're facing a 20-25% decline in the second half of the year."

Meanwhile, Ecocem cement is being used in a string of high-profile developments including the Convention Centre Dublin (CCD), the Point Depot (which has recently been renamed the O2) and Lansdowne Road stadium.

O'Riain said the developers involved had opted to use Ecocem's cement due to major environmental benefits – the carbon emissions from the production of the company's cement are typically around 85% less than those from the creation of standard Portland cement.

"The use of green materials is very important for some projects. For instance, the CCD is competing with other conference centres throughout the world. If you want your offering to get on a chief executive's shortlist, you need to have a unique selling point, and companies will always make room for the greenest option."

Ecocem is also getting a steady stream of business from infrastructural projects because its cement, which is made from blast-furnace slag, is technically superior to Portland cement for some uses.

"For instance, all the NRA's new road bridges throughout Ireland use our product purely for technical reasons, because they want long-lasting structures," said O'Riain.

Like fellow Irish green entrepreneur Eddie O'Connor, O'Riain's work has secured the backing of several international heavyweights.

The world's largest building materials firm, Saint Gobain, owns a 30% share in Ecocem, while the construction of its new €28m plant in France is backed by Arcelor Mittal, the world's biggest steel producer.

Arcelor Mittal, which is owned by the world's fourth richest man Lakshmi Mittal, has a 30% stake in the French plant and will provide it with slag from its neighbouring Fos-sur-Mer steelworks.

Although O'Riain has yet to meet Mittal in person, he said that the Indian billionaire was taking a keen interest in the project, which will help Arcelor Mittal secure a return from the disposal of its slag.

"I believe he speaks very high of us. When he visited Fos-sur-Mer a few weeks ago, he insisted on getting his photograph taken on the site where we are building our grinding plant. So he's taking a personal interest," he said.

The French plant is due to start producting cement next September but Ecocem is already in discussions with Arcelor Mittal regarding other joint ventures elsewhere. "There's still around 100 million tonnes of slag from the steel industry each year which is not being exploited, which is a dreadful waste economically and environmentally," he said.

O'Riain said that Ecocem was also looking at a number of other locations worldwide on its own, including the United Arab Emirates, which has seen rapid economic growth over the past decade.

Later this week, he will visit Dubai and Abu Dhabi to examine opportunities in the region, but said that it remained unclear whether Ecocem would invest there.

"There are still particular questions about the sustainability of the construction boom out there. We've seen what happens to booms in Ireland so no Irish person should go out there with rose-tinted glasses," he said.

O'Riain said that any investment in the region would be on a similar scale to its Fos-sur-Mer project and would form part of the company's attempts to increase its output to five million tonnes of cement over the next five years.

The firm currently produces around 600,000 tonnes of cement per annum between its plant at Poolbeg and a similar facility in the Netherlands – a figure which will more than double once the French plant is up and running.

O'Riain has plans to expand Ecocem's Irish operations but has been forced to put them on hold as, like O'Connor before him, he has encountered a distinct lack of government support.

"It's like a prophet can never be appreciated in his own country. When Eddie went abroad, he found people greeting him with open arms whereas at home, he just got a grudging acceptance," he said.

In Ecocem's case, O'Riain is angered by the government's refusal to correct flaws in Ireland's allocations under the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). He believes that these are allowing his rivals to profit from the success of his business.

The state has barred Ecocem's entry into ETS, a move which O'Riain believes is down to its reluctance to cut the free carbon credits given to large cement producers such as CRH and Quinn Cement.

If Ecocem joined the scheme, its rivals' credits would have to be cut by around 300,000 tonnes – increasing the likelihood that they will need to purchase credits from less polluting industries, cutting their profits.

"For every tonne of cement we sell, it means one tonne of standard cement is not going to be used. Therefore, our competitors produce one tonne less but because of the oversupply of credits, they get a credit for that tonne which they can sell off for a profit," he said.

"I think we're the only company in the world that is expected to subsidise its competitors when it takes market share from them."

O'Riain revealed that this situation was already having implications on its Irish operations, which he had hoped to double in size due to the relatively low penetration of slag-derived cement in the market here.

"We're not going to expand by another tonne here until the Irish government learns to treat us properly and not discriminate against us. If they continue to stack the odds against us, we will go elsewhere and they can face up to the cost of construction-industry emissions on their own."

Curriculum Vitae

Donal O'Riain

Age: 61

Family: Married with four children

Interests: Tennis and travelling

Education: Degree in Electrical Engineering from UCD, MBA from TCD and a BA in English and Philosophy from UCD

Career: 2000 – Present: Group managing director, Ecocem; 1992 – 2000: Consultant to building materials firms; 1987 – 1990: Western European manager, CRH; 1984 – 1987: Group development manager, CRH