Friday, 9 August 2019

How will LafargeHolcim cut its CO2 emissions...

...if all it ever does is sell more and more cement? Is it time for a cement tax?


Unprecedented efforts to install renewable power capacity have only translated into meeting 2 per cent of global energy demand, meaning the world’s overwhelming reliance on fossil fuels shows no sign of abating.
UN secretary-general António Guterres says:
Preventing irreversible climate disruption is the race of our lives. We need to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent by 2030.
Can we rely on the cement industry to act in the interests of humanity, and stop contributing towards this existential crisis? Not if LafargeHolcim – the world’s largest cement company – is anything to go by.

At the Paris COP21 climate conference in December 2015, 195 countries adopted the first-ever universal, legally-binding global climate deal. LafargeHolcim was there:


What has since happened to LafargeHolcim's CO2 emissions?

2016 – 115,000,000 tonnes CO2

2017 – 118,000,000 tonnes CO2

2018 – 121,000,000 tonnes* CO2

LafargeHolcim's carbon footprint is equivalent to over 14 million homes or 31 coal-fired power plants; more than the entire Czech Republic – itself Europe's fifth biggest CO2 polluter. Whatever progress the company makes, in reducing CO2 per tonne of cement produced, is dwarfed by selling more cement; in 2018, a 1% reduction in CO2/tonne was outweighed by selling 3.5% more cement. We’ve posted how LafargeHolcim has a way with numbers – CO2 emission numbers. LafargeHolcim has just reported a strong first half of the year, again boosted by "higher cement volumes".

Aggregate Industries, part of LafargeHolcim, now emits nearly 1.3 million tonnes of CO2 each year, more than 5x the amount it emitted in 1999. We posted about the CO2 emissions that AI ‘forgot’ in 2016.

Cement has an inherently high carbon footprint. Nearly a tonne of CO2 is released for every tonne of cement produced. The Mineral Products Association fact sheet on embodied CO2e of UK cement puts the average cement emissions at 849kgCO2e/tonne for MPA Cement Member Companies (which includes Lafarge Cement UK – now part of AI).

Radical action is needed. What can be done?

Cement is too cheap. Its price does not reflect its environmental cost. Even the grey cement barons of Zurich acknowledge as much. LafargeHolcim's chairman says:
Consider a 25kg bag of general purpose cement at B&Q, currently retailing at £4.02. With 21.2kg of embodied CO2 (using the figure above) that's 19p per kgCO2e. The price of cement would need to more than double to match the carbon cost of diesel – which at say 128.9p/litre, with 2.9kg CO2/litre well to wheel, works out at 44p per kgCO2e.

There have been previous calls to tax cement – see Concrete is tipping us into climate catastrophe. It's payback time:
A specific cement tax would fit well into the growing clamour for a simple revenue-neutral global carbon tax. These have been proposed and adopted on a limited basis for over 20 years, but the cement industry has strongly lobbied against them in Europe, the US, Canada and elsewhere.
A high global cement tax, the theory goes, would concentrate industry’s minds and massively reduce demand for carbon-intensive cement.
LafargeHolcim’s chairman, is apparently "erstaunlich umweltbewusst" – according to this article at least. He says – as he must say – that LafargeHolcim's top priority is to reduce CO2 emissions:
But you wonder how "amazingly environmentally conscious" Mr Hess really is. He is against the "Responsible Business Initiative", an initiative that "wants multinationals to respect human rights and the environment in their activities abroad", calling it a "gigantische Absurdität".
Under the Responsible Business Initiative, companies will be legally obliged to incorporate respect for human rights and the environment in all their business activities. This mandatory due diligence will also be applied to Swiss based companies’ activities abroad… In order to ensure that all companies carry out their due diligence obligations, Swiss based firms will be liable for human rights abuses and environmental violations caused abroad by companies under their control. This provision will enable victims of human rights violations and environmental damage to seek redress in Switzerland.
He was also asked, and relying on Google Translate, "Do your children participate in the climate strikes and are you sympathetic to the young people who take to the streets?":
I reject any form of violence. My children are not participating in any demonstrations. But the topic is discussed with us. I am enormously worried about the devastation of the oceans with plastic. I would like to collect all plastic from the oceans and use it in our cement kilns.
Of course, we all reject violence, but the climate strikes and Extinction Rebellion protests have been notable for how exceptionally peaceful they have been. And we'd all like to clear the oceans of plastic, but is LafargeHolcim about to embark on such a venture? Of course not, but that doesn’t stop the company pumping out this greenwash:


Unfortunately, burning plastic to fire cement kilns still emits CO2 – and goodness know what other pollutants too. We obviously need to move quickly to cleaner more sustainable building materials. LafargeHolcim will need to do more than greenwash its businesses – or hide behind a few flowers – or they themselves risk extinction.


As the Guardian article concludes:
The cement industry has transformed the world and enriched both itself and mankind. But it now threatens to tip the environment into uncontrolled warming. It’s now payback time and the industry must respond urgently to the problem it has helped to create.




* Net CEM CO2 emissions. Total gross direct CO2 emissions 135Mt. Total indirect CO2 emissions 30Mt. Source: LafargeHolcim Sustainability Report 2018
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