ByggVesta has been awarded Environmental Award of the Year at the Betongvärlden Gala, recently held at Stockholm Waterfront. The jury recognized the company’s innovative work in optimizing construction processes and material development, combined with strong climate ambitions.
The jury — consisting of Amanda Borneke (Sweco), Karin Bergkvist (Peab), and Andreas Grüneberger (JM) — wrote in their motivation:
“ByggVesta wins the Environmental Award of the Year for actively working with the optimization of building processes and material development, combined with high climate ambitions. The company has developed and constructed Sweden’s first concrete frame where cement is partially replaced with cereal ash. ByggVesta demonstrates a scalable method that clearly improves and gradually reduces the climate impact in the concrete industry’s processes, products, and structures.”
The innovation highlighted by the jury is Agri™Betong, a material developed as part of Energimyndigheten’s (the Swedish Energy Agency’s) Industriklivet research program, in collaboration with RISE, Strängbetong, Södertälje Municipality, Lantmännen, and Swerim.
Agri™Betong uses grain husks, a byproduct from agriculture, which are normally burned for bioenergy. The resulting ash can instead be used as an additive in concrete production — leading to an industrial-grade concrete with half the climate footprint of conventional concrete.
The first precast elements made with Agri™Betong have been installed in ByggVesta’s project Sköterskan in Sege Park, and the company plans to expand its use across future developments.
