The Concrete Joint Sustainability Initiative announced at this year’s World of Concrete its 2010 goals and initiatives to align sustainable development activities within the concrete industry.

Formed last year, Concrete JSI is a unified group of 26 concrete associations dedicated to promoting the sustainable attributes of concrete as a building material. Initially chartered by the American Concrete Institute, National Ready Mixed Concrete Association and the Portland Cement Association, the group was formed to align advocacy, technology and educational resources related to concrete sustainability.

This year’s activities of the Concrete JSI include the distribution to the industry a series of nine PowerPoint presentations that communicate the purpose of the partnership and discuss each of the eight social values of concrete, as defined by the group. Member organizations will use these presentations to introduce both internal and external audiences to the shared message of concrete sustainability. The presentations are available on the Web site at www.sustainableconcrete.org.

The Web site, in addition to being a resource center for the members of the Concrete JSI, serves as the industry’s primary portal for educational and outreach efforts related to the sustainability of concrete structures. Included are links to the sites of all member associations.

The organization is also mapping out the research and development programs of each of its member organizations to identify synergies, overlaps and gaps to further develop and refine the research base related to concrete sustainability. The result will be the minimization of the duplication of activities among the member organizations and the further cooperation in areas of technical committees, educational seminars, publications, certification, marketing and other related activities pertaining to sustainable development.