Displaying items by tag: Sustainability

Germany: HeidelbergCement has highlighted occupational safety and research into CO₂ reduction as priorities in its sustainability report for 2017. It reduced its accident frequency rate for employees with at least one lost working day per 1,000,000 hours across cement, ready-mixed concrete and aggregates to 1.8 in 2017 from 2.2 in 2016.

“This represents a significant improvement. A large number of locations have now been accident-free for several years, while others have seen drastically reduced accident rates. Nevertheless, serious accidents still occurred in 2017. We will therefore further intensify our efforts to prevent accidents on a permanent basis,” said Bernd Scheifele, the chairman of HeidelbergCement.

The building materials producer has also singled out its commitment to reduce its specific CO₂ emissions by 30% in 2030 compared with 1990. It plans to support this by continually increasing the proportion of alternative raw materials and fuels and, wherever possible, to make its production processes more efficient. In addition, HeidelbergCement has invested in research programmes on carbon capture and its utilisation as a raw material. In 2017, it spent Euro141m on research and technology, an increase of around Euro24m from 2016.

Following HeidelbergCement’s acquisition of Italcementi in 2016 its CO₂ emissions have increased. Its specific net CO₂ emissions (per tonne of cementitious material) rose by 1.9% year-on-year to 609kg Co₂/t in 2017 from 598 kg Co₂/t in 2016. Its overall proportion of alternative fuels has also decreased slightly dropping to 20.8% from 21.4%. However, its specific energy consumption for cement and clinker continued to fall in 2017.

UK: Hanson UK’s sustainability report for 2017 shows that its CO₂ emissions per tonne of product have fallen by 7.2% to reach the lowest level for five years. However, the subsidiary of Germany’s HeidelbergCement may face issues meeting its target of a 10% reduction by 2020 from its 2010 figures as its CO₂ emissions from production have rise by 5.7% since 2010.

Overall, the company described 2017 as a year of ‘solid’ progress. It passed its 2020 targets for reducing both mains water use and waste to landfill. The number of lost time injuries remained static at 21, but the frequency rate was down on the prior year and there was a three-month unbroken spell without a lost time injury. The building materials producer also launched HeidelbergCement’s Sustainability Commitments 2030, including a set of targets for the group to achieve by 2020.

Sweden: Cementa, a subsidiary of HeidelbergCement, has handed its environmental roadmap to Minister of Trade and Innovation Mikael Damberg and Deputy Prime Minister and Climate Minister Isabella Lövin. The initiative is part of the Fossil-free Sweden plan to coordinate reduced reliance of industry on fossil fuels and increased competitiveness.

India: Heidelberg Cement India has been certified as over six times net water positive by TOV SOD, an independent certifying agency. During the 2016 – 2017 financial year the company’s cement plants withdrew 1.09kL of water from various sources but they harvested 6.97kL of water. This implies that the company collected more water from sustainable sources, such as rainfall, than it used. The company's multidimensional approach includes diverting rainwater to
reservoirs, installing water harvesting systems, reviving of bore wells, controlling seepage and educating its staff on water conservation.

UK: CO₂ emissions from cement production fell by 2% year-on-year to 696kg/t in 2016 from 709kg/t in 2015. Data from the Mineral Products Association (MPA) Sustainable Development (SD) Summary Data for 2017 report shows that local cement sales rose by 3% to 10.5Mt from 10.2Mt at the same time. Alongside this waste and by-products recovered as raw materials and fuels by the cement industry fell by 6% to 1.5Mt from 1.6Mt.

“The MPA supports the industry's continuing commitment to measuring and reporting data and to transparency on performance. The reporting process is now evolving to reflect the 7 strategic priorities set out in the MPA Charter and as part of this process we will be working to further improve the quality and coverage of our sustainability data,” said Nigel Jackson, the chief executive of the MPA.

UK: Nine cement and concrete companies have launched the Global Cement & Concrete Association (GCCA), a new association that intends to develop the sector’s role in sustainable construction. The association also wants to build innovation throughout the construction value chain, in collaboration with both industry associations and architects and engineers.

The GCCA will be led by international cement companies and headquartered in London, complementing and supporting the work done by existing associations at national and regional level. Membership of the GCCA is available for cement manufacturers from all over the world that share the organisation’s values, and partnerships will be developed with organisations that share its vision. GCCA’s founding members are Cemex, CNBM, CRH, Dangote, Eurocement, HeidelbergCement, LafargeHolcim, Taiheiyo and Votorantim. They represent 1046Mt of cement production capacity, according to the Global Cement Top 100 Report.

Belgium: Cembureau, the European cement association, has published a position paper outlining its stance European Commission’s plastics strategy. The association wants policymakers to ensure any plastic waste that has a calorific value that can be recovered as a fuel source is not landfilled. At present there are differences in waste management policies across the member states of the European Union.

Other points that Cemburea wants to highlight include: a ban on landfill of recoverable and recyclable waste; recognition that cement plants can treat different waste streams such as plastics and simultaneously recycle them as material in the manufacturing process of cement and recover them as energy; the specific relevance that co-processing offers the unique opportunity of a simultaneous energy and material recovery; and the potential to minimise investment costs in dedicated facilities.

In January 2018, the European Commission published a dedicated Plastics Strategy as part of the Circular Economy package. The strategy indicates that there is currently a low rate of recycling or reuse of plastics with most of it going to landfill or used in incinerators.

India: Ambuja Cement has been ranked seventh in the Construction Material category of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSJ) 2017. The subsidiary of LafargeHolcim was invited to participate in the DJSI Emerging Markets Index and beat its score from 2016. Each year about 2500 global companies, listed on the stock exchange, belonging to about 59 economic sectors, are invited to participate in the DJSI.