Pakistan: The Pakistan National Forum of Environment and Health (NFEH) has recognised Lucky Cement’s sustainability successes with a prize at the 19th Annual Environment Excellence Awards 2022. The company’s comprehensive environmental management and monitoring plan covers its solid waste, noise pollution and emissions, including particulates. It says that this is essential to preserving the ecosystem in which it operates.

Chief operating officer Amin Ganny said “We believe in environment-friendly practices and are committed to conserving the environment. Implementation of sustainability into our core business operations has always been one of our main objectives.”

Turkey: KÇS Kipaş Çimento has placed an order with KHD Humboldt Wedag for a Pyrorotor for its Kahramanmaraş cement plant. The supplier says that the equipment will enable the plant's calciner to achieve an alternative fuel (AF) substitution rate of 90%. It will additionally restrict NO_x emissions to 800mg/Nm³. After a short shutdown for assemblage of gas duct connections, KHD expects to commission the upgraded system in mid-to-late 2023.

The company says that the KÇS Kipaş Çimento contract represents its 11th Pyrorotor order globally and the first in Turkey.

New Zealand: Fletcher Building Materials recorded consolidated sales of US$5.37bn during its 2022 financial year, up by 4.7% year-on-year from US$5.13bn in the previous year. Its net earnings also rose by 42%, to US$273m from US$193m.

The group's concrete division, which includes Golden Bay Cement, contributed US$556m-worth (9%) of group sales. The figure represents an 8% increase from 2021 financial year levels. The business recorded 'strong performances' across all key product segments, underpinned by 'robust' demand and pricing. It made capital expenditure investments of US$51.1m, including in a waste tyre recycling system upgrade at the Golden Bay cement plant. The latter increased the plant's alternative fuel (AF) substitution to 50% from 35%. The company also continued to focus on developing low-CO₂ concrete binders.

Fletcher Building Materials chief executive officer Ross Taylor said "The 2022 financial year has not been without its challenges. Global and national supply chain disruptions have continued into the third year of the Covid-19 pandemic." He added "The New Zealand Commerce Commission recently published its interim market study report into residential building supplies. The final report and recommendations will be published in December 2022 and in the meantime we will continue to work collaboratively with both the commission and the government."

Czech Republic: Lafarge Cement says that it has achieved an alternative fuel (AF) thermal substitution rate of 95% at its Čížkovice cement plant. The plant's fuel mix includes contaminant fractions from local plastic recycling. As a result of the move, the plant no longer uses any natural gas in its cement production.

In 2022 as a whole, the producer plans to increase its share of reduced-CO2 cement sales, increase construction waste recycling in its products and reduce its cement's water consumption.