Boral CEO Vik Bansal says cheap imports of clinker cement are undermining the company’s emissions reduction efforts because they have a higher carbon content than locally produced clinker even before they are shipped to Australia using fossil fuel transport.

Mr Bansal told the Australasian Emissions Reduction Summit in Sydney that a carbon border adjustment mechanism – or tax – which the federal government is considering for imports would be crucial to the cement industry’s continued viability because unlike local production the imports are not subject to the beefed-up safeguard mechanism’s steadily reducing carbon emissions caps and financial penalties.