(France) -- Lafarge has made asignificant breakthrough in reducing its carbon footprint by exceeding its CO2 emissions reduction target one year in advance.
Lafarge is following a voluntary approachon a global scale. For ten years, the Group has been publicly committed toreducing its global net emissions per tonne of cement by 20% between 1990 and2010, within the framework of a partnership with WWF International.
At the end of 2009, the Group had reducedits emissions by 20.7%*, thanks to the mobilization of operating units in threeareas:
-Theimprovement of energy efficiency through mastered production processes
-Thesubstitution of fossil fuels by alternative energy sources, such as biomass orindustrial waste
-Thedevelopment of new ranges of products meeting market requirements, usingadditives and recovering by- products from other industries.
Lafarge intends tocontinue its efforts to reduce its CO2 emissions; this is the majorreason that led to the renewal of the strategic partnership with WWFInternational.
A continuous investment in industrial ecology, independent of regulatory constraints
The Group is continuously and heavily investing inorder to deliver on its commitments. Over the last five years, more than 800million euros have been spent for reducing the environmental footprint of theGroup's cement plants.
A dynamicinnovation turned towards reducing the carbon footprint of buildings
In parallel, Lafarge has intensified its R&Dactions for developing sustainable products and solutions. In recent years, almosthalf of the Group's research budget has been devoted to developing new productswith a reduced carbon footprint. More than 120 researchers and technicians are involvedin these topics.
As examples, Thermedia 0.6B, in partnership withBouygues Construction, is the first in a range of structuring insulatingconcretes, and the Pregymax 29.5 plasterboard provides very high thermal and acoustic performances.
A mobilizationof the industry to accelerate the deployment of good practices
Apart from these investments, the Group has beenstrongly committed to develop a sectoral approach for change in the field ofclimate change, particularly through the Cement Sustainability Initiative(CSI). Co-chaired by Bruno Lafont, the CSI, an organization of 23 worldwidecement groups, has recently been joined by five key Chinese cementmanufacturers.
The Europeancontext
These actions aimed at reducing both the industrialand the product carbon footprint have been launched on a voluntary basis andmainly before any national or regional regulations.
In Europe, Lafarge,like other industrial businesses, is subject to the ETS system (EuropeanTrading Scheme) that was put in place in 2005 to encourage manufacturers to beginor to pursue their efforts in reducing their CO2 emissions. In2009, the Group had surplus quotas worth 140 million euros, due to bothinvestments and efforts made to reduce CO2 emissionsand a context of declining volumes in European countries.
Notesto editors
Lafargeis the world leader in building materials, with top-ranking positions in all ofits businesses: Cement, Aggregates & Concrete and Gypsum. With 78,000employees in 78 countries, Lafarge posted sales of Euros 15.8 billion in 2009.
In 2010 and for the sixth year in a row, Lafarge waslisted in the ‘Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World'. With the world'sleading building materials research facility, Lafarge places innovation at theheart of its priorities, working for sustainable construction and architecturalcreativity.
Source: http://www.pressreleasepoint.com/lafarge-exceeds-its-target-reduce-global-co2-emissions