The importance of local business gets discussed a lot these days. Usually, it’s in reference to what’s being lost as mom-and-pop storefronts disappear from Main Streets under pressure from global conglomerates with high tech and deep pockets, market changes and shifts in consumer preferences.

But “local” business is far more varied than the corner coffee shop, pizza joint or quirky book store. One example is concrete production, which rarely makes headlines but is every bit as tied to location and integral to community strength.

The three main ingredients in concrete—gravel, sand and water—make up about 90% of its volume and are generally available everywhere, which is why it’s the most common building material on the planet. Ready-mix concrete is always produced close to where it’s used, generally within 60 miles, and often closer, to minimize transportation cost since concrete producers operate on the smallest margins of any construction product.

Many concrete producers across the nation are regionally based, reliant on local facilities and incredibly family-oriented businesses with deep roots in their communities.

Case Study

Chaney Enterprises is a concrete producer operating in three states and the District of Columbia, with 25 ready mix plants serving the greater Chesapeake Bay region. It also runs six sand and gravel facilities as the largest producer of sand and gravel in the state of Maryland.

But it’s still a local family-run business (spanning three generations of Chaneys) and is still working to ensure it acts as a family business even as it grows and competes against multinational companies. It doesn’t aim to be a large behemoth where employees and clients are just numbers.

Just like the local shops on Main Street, Chaney Enterprises had to innovate and compete with a changing world to stay in business. For a company so strongly tied to its community with a reputation for direct access and dependability, introducing new technologies or materials means putting everything on the line. It needed to make changes for the benefit of the community and the business.

For example, it recently incorporated CarbonCure technology into ready-mix operations. It injects captured carbon dioxide (CO2) into fresh concrete to reduce its carbon footprint without compromising performance. Through a mineralization process, the CO2 becomes permanently embedded in the concrete, increasing its compressive strength.

There’s plenty of science and literature to back up its validity and benefits, but before it introduced the product to its clientele, it ran controlled trial batches to make sure the whole team had the facts on what the product would do and how it could improve the quality of concrete. Once the company did its homework and was satisfied with performance, it started putting the Carbon Cure technology in every non-specified concrete mix.

Now Chaney Enterprises is committed to spreading the word and talking to local specifiers, engineers, and architects to get them on board to update specifications for all future projects to incorporate concrete made with CO2. Helping the environment with a high-performing, more sustainable product is just the right thing to do.

Costs and benefits mean something more tangible to local businesses. Everyone wants the world safeguarded for when our grandkids’ grandkids are here. For local businesses, that means taking responsibility and embracing the right changes to preserve their communities. As providers of the material that makes up the vast majority of structures in our own neighborhoods, concrete producers understand that on a professional and personal level.