Friday 2 December 2016

‘At LafargeHolcim, we want to lead in sustainability and set new standards’

Once upon a time there was a Big Polluting Cement Giant.

It realised it needed to do something about the millions of people across the world who were suffering from the effects of climate change, from crop failures, from extreme weather, from rising sea levels. 

The Big Polluting Cement Giant was, after all, one of the largest CO2-emitting giants in the world.

It decided to make itself look greener. It prepared a leaflet for the Paris climate talks:
An ambitious international agreement on climate change is key to limiting global warming to below 2 degrees. We need action, now.


At another climate conference in Switzerland, its leader announced:


The Big Polluting Cement Giant even went to the Marrakech climate talks:
As a world leader and advocate of the decarbonization of the construction value chain, LafargeHolcim welcomed the COP 21 Paris Agreement. We have since elaborated a set of commitments to cut our net CO2 emissions and reduce our dependency on natural resources. 
Our presence at the COP 22 conference will be an opportunity to showcase how the Group is contributing to the global climate and circular agenda...
And it produced a Plan:
Since the Paris Agreement adopted in December 2015, LafargeHolcim has rolled out an ambitious sustainability strategy: the 2030 Plan. With this plan, we are turning our core value of sustainability into a set of actionable goals. One of its four pillars focuses on climate.
But it was obvious to the little people - the little people who can see what the Big Polluting Cement Giant wants to do in Devon - that phrases like "ambitious sustainability strategy" and "we want to lead in sustainability and set new standards" and "We need action, now" were no more than words.

And what use are words, when other, not so little, people warn that climate change is set to cause a refugee crisis of "unimaginable scale"What use are words, when the impacts of releasing CO2 into the atmosphere "will last longer than Stonehenge"?