LafargeHolcim commits to zero emissions

The announcement sees LafargeHolcim become the first company of its kind to join the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). The scheme determines how much and how quickly firms must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Under SBTi’s ‘Business Ambition for 1.5°C’, an urgent target set by UN agencies, business and industry leaders, LafargeHolcim has committed to speeding up the reduction in CO₂ intensity per tonne of cementitious materials by 2030.

LafargeHolcim, which operates in over 90 countries, is working with SBTi to develop a roadmap for helping the global cement sector hit the 1.5°C target – the temperature at which it is believed we can avoid irreversible damage due to climate change.

This includes spearheading a number of initiatives that will be rolled out across its UK business Aggregate Industries, such as recycling 100 million tons of waste and byproducts for energy and raw materials and accelerate the use of low-carbon and carbon-neutral products.

Guy Edwards, chief executive officer at Aggregate Industries UK, said, “We’re proud to be part of the LafargeHolcim Group as it makes the bold and ambitious pledge to go Net Zero by 2050. By being the first building materials supplier in the world to sign up to the SBTi’s ‘Business Ambition for 1.5°C’ demonstrates our genuine desire to achieve real and lasting change in protecting the environment.”

Forty of the world’s leading cement and concrete companies recently unveiled a joint industry ‘2050 Climate Ambition’ that contains a roadmap for how the concrete industry can become carbon neutral by 2050.