Ten companies account for 70% of Spain's industrial CO2 emissions. Reading that ranking in reverse points to where action is needed, and why timber construction offers a measurable alternative.
The environment and economics magazine La Ballena Blanca published an article titled Estas diez empresas generan el 70% del CO2 de las emisiones industriales (y el 28% del total del país). The figure is useful precisely because it can be read in reverse: identifying who concentrates the emissions also identifies which changes would effectively reduce CO2.
According to that analysis, Spain's ten leading polluting companies share the weight of emissions as follows:
Together they represent 70% of Spain's industrial CO2 emissions and 28% of the generic total. One fact stands out: Endesa, one of the country's main electricity providers, leads the ranking by a wide margin, and four further energy companies appear alongside it. This concentration shows that renewable energy still has a long way to go in the country, and that the rethinking must come from the institutions as well.
That, however, is not the figure that draws our attention most. On closer inspection, two of the companies in the ranking are cement manufacturers, CEMEX and Cementos Portland, while Acelormittal operates partly within the construction sector. Together they account for close to 10% of Spain's industrial pollution. Cement manufacturing is necessary, but also highly polluting.
Within the high-efficiency construction sector there are companies, ourselves among them, that build with sustainable materials which not only emit no CO2 but absorb more than they release. Put differently, they decontaminate. It may seem surprising, but it is the principle that defines what are known as ecological, biopassive and sustainable homes.
The explanation is straightforward. At PAPIK Group we build with a natural, sustainable material: timber. The timber we use comes from nearby plantations, mostly in France, since in Catalonia this industry is still emerging. These plantations must grow for more than twenty years before the timber can be harvested, and throughout that time the trees absorb CO2. In the process of producing
the timber, nature captures more CO2 than is emitted.
The timber industry brings additional benefits. First, it generates no waste: while the timber is being shaped, the larger offcuts and the shavings are reused to make smaller pieces or biomass. Second, it guarantees that forest cover is not lost. The timber we use is FSC certified, a seal that ensures a new tree is planted for every tree felled. How this material logic applies across the whole build is something we develop on our construction page.
A change of paradigm is under way in the national construction sector. On one hand, toward more efficient building. On the other, toward the use of natural, sustainable materials such as timber, which is breaking down deeply rooted taboos in our society. At PAPIK Group we lead this change by building high-efficiency biopassive homes with sustainable, ecological materials. Our homes also meet the requirements of the most demanding external certification on the market, the Passivhaus certificate, which guarantees maximum indoor comfort with no energy cost. Renovating the existing building stock follows the same logic, as we explain on our retrofit page.
Cutting emissions does not depend on cleaner manufacturing alone, but on choosing materials that work in favour of the carbon balance rather than against it.