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LEARNING CENTER
Bring practitioners, researchers and policy makers together to exchange the latest innovations for sustainable concrete design, construction and manufacturing.

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CONTINUING EDUCATION

Each session offers AIA Continuing Education and Professional Development Hours. Complete the form provided for each session to receive credits.

AWARD PROGRAM
Recognizes outstanding achievements in concrete performance and sustainability.

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Schedule

SCHEDULE FOR UPCOMING SESSIONS
Webinars | LIVE events

JULY 15, 2026

11:00-13:00 eastern

SESSION 40 | WHAT'S NEW IN CEMENT STANDARDS FOR 2026

The cement and concrete industries continue to advance initiatives that improve the sustainability and resilience of concrete construction. Ongoing updates to cement standards can support those goals, such as the recently approved revisions to blended cement standards regarding changes to compositional requirements, including the introduction of a new cement type. Concrete producers, users, and specifiers who stay informed of the most recent technical requirements contained in cement standards will be well positioned to produce concretes with appropriate fresh and hardened properties and will be better able to evaluate current practices to determine if, when, and how to adjust those practices for optimum results.

Topics to be covered:

Evolution of US cement standards
Overview of cement standards C150/M 85, C595/M 240, C1157
Review of cement types, including the new Type IC
Naming practice Type XX((A)(B) and transparency
Comparison of general requirements of cement types
Comparison of special property requirements of cement types
Standards changes coming to C595 and M240 in August
Details of the new requirements and rationale
USGS blended cement share
DOT acceptance maps
Best practices for introducing new cements, including blended cements
SCM (and blended cements) influence on fresh and hardened concrete properties
Producer data and recommended concrete tests and test placements
NRMCA and ACA resources

Presented by:

James (Jamie) Farny, ACA Director, Environmental Measurement and Metrics

Paul Tennis, Ph.D., FACI, FASTM, ACA Senior Director, Research & Product Standards

BCMI and the Superworkforce, Part 2: Agent XBE Across the Full Operation

Description: In Part 1, we showed how All-22 turns dispatch into a simulation-driven discipline -- optimizing the full field, generating tickets, and opening the door to autonomous execution. This session picks up where that left off. Agent XBE doesn't stop at the batch queue. It works across BCMI's entire operational and commercial surface -- answering dispatch questions, investigating tickets and orders, supporting customer changes, surfacing quoting and CRM context, generating reports, and executing multi-step workflows that used to require a person clicking through screens. We'll walk through what it actually looks like when an AI superworkforce monitors your operation continuously, spots delivery risk and cycle-time drift before anyone has to ask, and takes action on the same workflows your team uses every day. This isn't a chatbot bolted onto a dashboard. It's a superworkforce that grows out of the system your dispatchers already trust.

Presented by:

Chris Wurtz, Division President at XBE

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SESSION 41 | THE NEW CONCRETE PCR, INDUSTRY-WIDE EPD AND BENCHMARK REPORT

Sustainable ready-mixed concrete design is a rapidly evolving field. The NRMCA industry average environmental product declaration (EPD) for concrete has demonstrated an estimated 21% decrease in industry carbon emissions, measured in Global Warming Potential (GWP), from 2014 to 2021. It is essential for industry standards to be updated frequently to keep pace with the changing field of sustainable ready-mixed concrete.

NSF International recently published the revised Product Category Rule (PCR) standard for ready mixed concrete with key updates that will affect how ready-mixed concrete producers report data to create EPDs.

NRMCA is also publishing its fourth version of the Industry Average EPD and Benchmark Report, which it has maintained since 2013. This report will conform with the new concrete PCR and estimates the environmental impacts of ready-mixed concrete across a large range of compressive strengths and ratios of cement replacement by supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs). Version 4.0 is based on an entirely new survey of the industry, with data contributed by over 1,000 ready-mixed concrete plants, more than double the size of previous versions.

The Regional Benchmark Report is a companion document which uses the same survey data to estimate the impact of the “average” concrete mix based on survey data, for both national and multi-state regional scopes. This assists specifiers and policy makers with setting realistic, achievable benchmarks for low-carbon concrete that still drive innovation and best sustainable practices.

This session will provide an overview of the new concrete PCR, industry-wide EPD and regional benchmark report outlining key updates and their anticipated impact on industry.

Learning Objectives:

Review the history of the concrete product category rule (PCR) and Industry Average environmental product declaration (EPD) for concrete.
Understand the concrete PCR version 3.0 and its effects on EPDs for concrete.
Discuss the expanded range of concrete products in the Industry Average EPD version 4.0.
Review changes in national and regional global warming potential (GWP) benchmarks and their causes.