In 1965, Straitgate Farm near Ottery St Mary in Devon was bought by ECC Quarries in the hope it would yield 20 million tonnes of sand & gravel. In 2001, Straitgate Action Group was formed to oppose the development and its potential harm to water supplies, ancient wetland habitats, protected species and much more. In 2023, Aggregate Industries – owned by Swiss giant Holcim – was finally granted permission to quarry just 1 million tonnes following a public inquiry. This blog records the story.
Christmas is almost upon us and yet another year has passed. And what a truly terrible year 2020 has been on so many fronts, one most of us would rather forget.
However, some things never change. The Straitgate affair, saga, adventure, crusade, chronicles, folk tale, comedy, farce, tragedy, pantomime – delete as applicable – merrily goes on much as before. Aggregate Industries has been struggling for the best part of a decade with its plans for a quarry at Straitgate Farm, lurching from one problem to the next.
What progress has been made in 2020? In the time others have taken to develop life-saving vaccines, Aggregate Industries has – drum roll – submitted an application for "a new field gate". Ta-daa!
Don’t mock – they had words, pictures and all sorts of fantastical claims. Local people were most impressed how Aggregate Industries could claim 150 cows crossing Ottery's busy B3174 Exeter Road four times daily:
provides betterment to the current situation
...when the current situation is virtually no livestock crossing that road.
Amazing. What creativity. What chutzpah!
But more than 12 months to produce a few words and pictures doesn't show a company in any hurry. Perhaps Aggregate Industries has a cunning plan.
Or perhaps it doesn’t.
To be fair, the company has had a few surprises and setbacks over the years.
But what everybody wants to know is this: With as-dug sand and gravel having to be carted 23 miles off-site for processing, some 2,500,000 miles in total – the equivalent of 100 times around the Earth – doesn't Aggregate Industries have any scruples?
Many wonder why these plans haven't been ditched. What is Aggregate Industries' modus operandi?
Of course, Aggregate Industries claims "sustainability is at the heart of our business, and is incorporated in all of our operations...". Yeah right.
Parent LafargeHolcim, a company emitting more CO2 than many countries but supposedly "making climate action part of everything we do", is no better.
Both are proficient in the art of greenwash.
And lest we forget, both companies have one aim, and one aim only.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all readers
An accident occurred on the B3174 Exeter Road on 12 December. A car hit a telegraph pole. The photo below shows the result. Police attended the incident and the occupant of the car was taken to hospital.
Aggregate Industries’ planning application to quarry Straitgate Farm has stirred from its slumbers. Last December, the company wrote to Devon County Council advising that:
A planning application for a new cattle crossing over the B3174 Exeter Road is also being finalised for submission to EDDC.
Twelve months later, Aggregate Industries has finally submitted its planning application to East Devon District Council for a "Livestock Crossing over the B3174 Exeter Road incorporating Holding Pens."
The application 20/2542/FUL is open for comments until 12 January 2021. It is important that local people respond to this application, raising any concerns they might have – either online, by email, or by post.
This is an application by Aggregate Industries to facilitate its plans for a quarry at Straitgate Farm. This is not an application by the tenant farmer, or at the request of the tenant farmer.
The crossing would only be needed for the dairy herd if the quarry were to proceed. Securing permission for such a crossing is therefore fundamental for Aggregate Industries if the company is to win permission to quarry Straitgate.
Aggregate Industries needs a cattle crossing because its quarry plans for Straitgate would remove up to 87% of the available pasture on the farm:
The area of the existing agricultural holding extends to some 120.78 acres (48.9ha)… The application site covers an area extending to some 42.5ha, with mineral extraction proposed to take place within 22.6ha with the remainder of the site occupied by temporary soil storage bunds, mitigation planting and site management and access areas.2.1.10
The 150 or so dairy cows that currently graze the site would therefore require alternative pasture, which is only available on the south side of the B3174 Exeter Road.
Crossings to and from the milking parlour would need to be up to 4x daily, twice in the morning and twice in the evening. Needless to say such a crossing, of such frequency and with such numbers of livestock, would not only be dangerous but would cause disruption to the flow of traffic on the B3174 – a fast and busy road linking Ottery St Mary with the Daisymount A30 junction.
Aggregate Industries has proposed the livestock crossing close to the brow of a hill on this 60 mph road. Vehicles would need to stop for the cows just beyond the brow of this hill:
There have already been many accidents along this stretch of road – some recorded here.
We have estimated that queues could stretch as far as Daisymount Junction to the west and as far as Taylor’s to the east. During the 15 minutes crossing times, over 100 vehicles can be travelling on the B3174 Exeter Road in one direction or the other. Aggregate Industries’ quarry plans would add up to 216 HGV movements a day into this mix – more than one every 3 minutes.
The provision of a Cattle crossing over the B3174 may have severe impact on the operation of the B3174, which in the absence of assessment is not known.
the impacts should be factored into the safety assessments and traffic calculations.
No safety assessments or traffic calculations have ever been provided for the impact of such a scheme, neither are any included in the above application.
Aggregate Industries has already experienced cows on this road. Here’s a scene from a few years ago when drilling equipment was being moved.
Aggregate Industries’ application for the cattle crossing fails to provide a transport assessment, fails to spell out the disruption from such a crossing, fails to assess lengths of queuing traffic, fails to assess the impact on safety, fails to admit the frequency of crossings required as land is removed for quarrying, fails to assess the impact on emergency vehicles travelling to and from the hospital.
Aggregate Industries is however up to its old tricks again, fabricating all sorts of tosh in its Supporting Statement in support of this bonkers plan:
6.1 In certain circumstances it may become necessary for the farm tenant to move the dairy herd over to the south of the B3174 to access other grazing land owned by the tenant’s family.
6.2 The new access will reduce disruption to vehicles, during periods when cattle traverse the public highway and increase safety for both the tenant farmer and road users.
6.5 The substantially reduced distance of crossing will shorten the time taken to cross the herd over the public highway and potentially reduce the transfer of mud onto the highway itself.
6.6 The proposed crossing therefore provides betterment to the current diagonal crossing point which both the tenant farmer and road users will benefit from.
6.7 It is considered that there are no material considerations why planning permission should not be granted.
It’s laughable. If this application made any sense it wouldn’t need to resort to such nonsense.
Of course, nowhere does the application mention that this crossing would only be needed to facilitate a quarry, and then would be needed up to 4x daily for the duration of the quarry – for some 10-12 years. Aggregate Industries merely claims that "in certain circumstances it may become necessary...".
The company also plainly knows nothing about cows. Design and Management of Proper Handling Systems for Dairy Cows, on the other hand, tells us that "Cattle are gregarious and follow each other… Cows prefer to walk single file… A cow can walk at a speed range of 1.5 to 3.1 mph… A group of cows can walk at an average speed of 1.7 mph… When dominant cows in a group slow down or stop, the rest of the group will slow or stop… Subordinate cows will not walk past dominant cows".
So let’s watch how all that plays out with this group of cows from elsewhere in Devon. Then imagine 150.
Previous posts on the subject can be found here for information:
The space left in the atmosphere for further concentrations of carbon dioxide is the ultimate scarce resource, and it needs to be priced accordingly - Mark Lewis, BNP Paribas
Assumptions of future technologies and targets decades ahead delay immediate action. Countries and corporations must shift focus from distant net zero targets to real emissions reductions now.
We must shift focus from mid-century net-zero targets to immediate, real emissions reductions in our own high-income countries. Reductions of at least 10% per year are needed. This massive transformation of our societies is our only way to fulfil the Paris agreement without relying on risky and unproven, large-scale deployment of negative emission technologies.
The Paris Climate Agreement was signed back in 2015. Has much changed in 5 years? Have polluters cut their CO2 emissions, and ditched unsustainable schemes?
Take Aggregate Industries. Its original planning application in 2015 to quarry Straitgate Farm did not propose processing the sand and gravel 23 miles away at Hillhead. Aggregate Industries said:
Processing at Hillhead may be feasible, but would generate a massively greater quantity of CO2 emissions from the additional mileage required to be travelled.
That 2015 application was subsequently pulled. When resubmitted in 2017, processing at Hillhead was exactly what was proposed. Aggregate Industries had changed its tune, claiming that processing Straitgate material at Hillhead was now somehow both "logical" and "appropriate".
But what about the "massively greater quantity of CO2 emissions" that would be generated? On that, Aggregate Industries’ revised Environmental Statement was strangely silent. Three years on we’re still no wiser. So much for transparency.
Is corporate transparency on climate change important? LafargeHolcim – Swiss cement giant and parent of Aggregate Industries – suddenly seems to think so, given how pleased it is about the latest scores from the Carbon Disclosure Project.
Thousands of companies make annual disclosures through CDP’s climate change, forests and water security questionnaires at the request of investors and corporate buyers. Companies worth $15 trillion have been revealed on the CDP 2020 A List. LafargeHolcim was one of them. HeidelbergCement another. In fact, this year, 313 companies were named on this list – a 45% increase on 2019.
Congratulations to the companies earning places on our 2020 Climate, Forests & Water A Lists, for their leadership in tackling environmental risks through corporate transparency: https://t.co/t04LTMnvwqpic.twitter.com/ZERi9L23MF
Distant hypothetical targets are being set, and big speeches are being given. Yet, when it comes to the immediate action we need, we are still in a state of complete denial, as we waste our time, creating new loopholes with empty words and creative accounting.
If only words, pledges and setting distant hypothetical targets actually lowered our emissions then we wouldn't still be in this mess. The longer we pretend we can "fix this" without treating the crisis like a crisis, the more invaluable time we'll loose.#FaceTheClimateEmergency
Is LafargeHolcim’s A grade all about empty words and distant hypothetical targets?
"This ranking confirms how committed we are to driving our #netzero journey, with the most ambitious CO2 targets in our sector. This is a great testimony to the dedication of our teams, making climate action part of everything we do." @AndersonMagali_ CSO#Netzero#ClimateActionpic.twitter.com/6i5vODwzCW
You might ask why, if LafargeHolcim is now "leading the way", "making climate action part of everything we do", the company’s emissions are not falling faster, and why unsustainable schemes like the 2.5 million mile haulage plan for Straitgate Farm are still on the table?
LafargeHolcim crows "We have been given an ‘A’ score for tackling climate change". Really? For tackling climate change? Isn’t that over-egging it?
So what is this A grade all about? HeidelbergCement has set targets too, but it recognises its A score for being amongst "leaders in corporate transparency on climate change", rather than LafargeHolcim's hubristic and grandiose "prestigious 'A' score for tackling climate change":
Let's check to see what CDP – the "not-for-profit charity that runs the global disclosure system for investors, companies, cities, states and regions to manage their environmental impacts" – actually says:
By scoring companies from D- to A, we take them on a journey through disclosure to awareness, management, and finally to leadership. Our scoring measures the comprehensiveness of disclosure, awareness and management of environmental risks and best practices associated with environmental leadership, such as setting ambitious and meaningful targets.
The A List showcases the companies leading on environmental transparency and action, based on their annual disclosure through CDP’s climate change, forests and water security questionnaires. Thousands of companies disclose through CDP at the request of investors and corporate buyers.
This year has seen a major increase (45% up on last year) in the number of companies achieving an A score, with increases across all three themes that CDP assesses. Along with the high levels of disclosure, this shows growing environmental awareness among the business world in 2020.
For climate scores this is largely because more companies are choosing to be transparent by disclosing data – in itself an important step, driven by increased market pressure for transparency.
Of course, targets are good, transparency is good, but without meaningful reductions in emissions, without meaningful changes to working practices, it means nothing, it makes no difference to our climate crisis, it’s just greenwash.
But if LafargeHolcim has suddenly become so keen on climate transparency, why has subsidiary Aggregate Industries – a company that emits in the region of 1.3 million tonnes of CO2 a year – become less transparent, apparently giving up publicly reporting CO2 emissions?
But if it is "conducting business in an ethical and transparent manner" why have all those "annual reports [that] outline the economic, environmental and social performance of our operations" been removed from that page? Why is it that the only report now showing is the one from parent LafargeHolcim?
Transparency. Sounds good on a press release. Seemingly harder to do in real life.
LafargeHolcim – parent company of Aggregate Industries – has been scored in relation to water:
In addition, we received a score of A- in the @CDP ranking for water, which places the Group in the CDP’s Leadership band. This score recognizes LafargeHolcim's implementation of current best practices with regards to water performance and transparency.https://t.co/4WRg2sRWmYpic.twitter.com/iGD5FR2tVR
Because when it comes to Aggregate Industries, LafargeHolcim’s UK subsidiary, and Straitgate Farm, things seem far from transparent in relation to water.
This Plan lays out a roadmap for Devon to achieve net-zero carbon by 2050 at the latest, with an interim target of 50% reduction by 2030 below 2010 levels.
Net-zero Devon will be quite different from how it is now. Achieving net-zero will have strong spatial components, and so will need to be spatially planned for. Where things are in Devon and how they connect shapes most areas of our lives, it is a cross cutting issue and driver of GHG emissions.
Transport accounts for 31% of Devon’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The sector is the single largest emitter of GHG across the County, which also reflects the UK-wide position. Reducing emissions from transport is key to successfully reaching net-zero.
Aggregate Industries’ CEO Guy Edwards was recently asked his views on his company’s application to quarry Straitgate Farm. Despite claiming that his company took its responsibility to the environment "very seriously", Mr Edwards failed to explain why the underlying material at Straitgate is worth the environmental cost of 2.5 million HGV miles, and the thousands of tonnes of CO2 that such a scheme would produce.
CEMEX and others have in the meantime been publicising their push to use more sustainable transport:
CEMEX's commitment to #sustainable transport methods has enabled us to transport 2 million tonnes of aggregates across the UK by rail this year. This has saved over 12,500 tonnes of #CO2 compared to using trucks 🚆 head here to read more: https://t.co/ZTtSwyeicxpic.twitter.com/kOT0PiWlwl
Last week we delivered the first #Train into our Cricklewood Terminal on behalf @Hanson_UK and Mendip Rail Limited. As part of the new contract, DB Cargo UK will transport significant volumes of aggregates from Tytherington Quarry in Gloucestershire into London. #Freightpic.twitter.com/dNWBIo5vlN
Every week DB Cargo UK transports in the region of 7,200 tonnes of china clay for @Imerys in covered hopper wagons – this removes around 11,000 lorries a year off Cornwall’s road network.#TeamRedpic.twitter.com/jWDSsXCtip
A court has handed out the largest ever fine for wildlife crime to Bellway Homes after it admitted "carrying out work at a site where bats were known to inhabit". All species of bats in the UK are protected.
The company had been notified in planning documents that it would first need to obtain the appropriate mitigation and a Natural England European protected species licence.
Bellway housebuilders fined £600,000 for destroying bat roost in south London https://t.co/Cv1pvfJcbL
Little compensation planting has yet been established at Straitgate for protected bats and dormice. Much of the tree planting that took place in 2014 – in an effort to compensate for the ancient hedgerows and veteran trees that would be lost from quarrying – was in the wrong place and had to be cut down.
The People’s Trust for Endangered Species has strongly objected to Aggregate Industries' application to quarry Straitgate Farm, saying:
An extensive amount of important hedgerow will be destroyed. This is completely irreversible. The hedgerows are… likely to have existed for centuries… Compensation planting… for losses of irreplaceable habitat should be at a ratio in the region of 30 – 1. Proposed replanting and that already done falls far short of this.
More than 500 hundred objections from local residents, five parish councils and other bodies, together with a petition signed by more than 1000 people, were all sidelined by Devon County Council recently, when a scheme to turn farmland in protected countryside at Whitestone, 4km west of Exeter, into an industrial-scale landfill site was narrowly approved:
Devon County Council’s development management committee... voted to approve the scheme by seven votes to five, with two abstentions, after an initial vote to refuse was lost via the casting vote of committee chairman Cllr Jerry Brook after a 7-7 deadlock.
Planning application DCC/4101/2018 sought "the importation of 350,000m3 of inert soils and topsoil for the land raising of previously disturbed land that is not capable of sustaining commercial agriculture" at Lower Hare Farm. The planning officer’s report can be found here.
Devon County Council's Landscape Officer judged that:
... the proposed operation would degrade rather than conserve and enhance the landscape character and visual quality of the Haldon Hills Area of Great Landscape Value for a period of between 10 to 15 years, and significant adverse effects would not be mitigated to acceptable levels, therefore contrary to Policies W2, W12 and W18 of the Devon Waste Plan, Policy EN2A of the Teignbridge Local Plan and NPPF paragraphs 130 and 170.
An Area of Great Landscape Value (AGLV) is an area of land in England which is considered to be of high landscape quality with strong distinctive characteristics which make them particularly sensitive to development. The designation was established under the Town and Country Planning Act 1947. Within ALGVs the primary objective is conservation and enhancement of their landscape quality and individual character.
However, Devon County Council's chief planner decided otherwise, and recommended approval:
Taken in isolation, the landscape and visual impacts of the proposed development are such as to warrant refusal of the application due to the significant harm to the landscape character and visual quality of the AGLV for the duration of the landraising operation…. It is necessary, however, to weigh the adverse landscape impact against the contribution that the proposed facility would make to maintaining sufficient capacity for the disposal of inert waste materials within the Exeter area.
The dominant categories in the analysis were human-made mass in the form of buildings and infrastructure, composed of concrete, aggregates, bricks and asphalt.
It can’t go on like this.
In other news, a symposium facilitated by CDE has examined trends and challenges in construction and demolition waste recycling. Here are two paragraphs from a longer article that can be found here:
Focusing on the recycling sector, CDE’s Eunan Kelly, Head of RECO, was joined by a panel of construction, demolition and excavation waste pioneers to discuss challenges and opportunities for sustainable construction in the UK and Ireland. Commenting on the sharp rise in public awareness of sustainability issues, Scott Brewster, Managing Director at Brewster Bros. Ltd, said, “There’s never been a time in history when the general public have been more informed about the environmental crisis we face.” He referenced how self-discipline and external pressures are leading a shift in how companies in the construction industry operate, citing they have become “leaner and cleaner” for their adoption of recycled aggregates which is improving profit margins and reducing environmental impact. As well as public pressure, he believes political pressure, including ambitious zero waste and net-zero emissions targets, and fiscal pressures, such as landfill tax and the aggregates levy, will encourage more construction businesses to turn to high quality recycled sand and aggregate products.
Viv Russell of Longcliffe Quarries and James Thorne from the Institute of Quarrying joined with CDE to discuss the hidden value in by-product stockpiles. Russell explained, “A lot of things have changed over the years. Certainly, overburden was something you would muck away… and potentially, in the life of a quarry, you would move around three or four times. “You can’t afford to transport this material anymore,” he added. Pressures and influences on the industry, such as the Aggregates Levy in 2002, meant that a solution to costly waste products had to be found.
Russell continued, “Touching them [the waste products] once and turning them into a product is common sense. Now scalpings and crushed rock fines…once seen as a waste are now seen as a resource.” Commenting on the evolution in practice in the industry, Thorne said, “The drivers are changing and the industry is moving its focus to reflect that.”
Accusing someone of virtue signalling is to accuse them of a kind of hypocrisy. The accused person claims to be deeply concerned about some moral issue but their main concern is – so the argument goes – with themselves. They’re not really concerned with changing minds, let alone with changing the world, but with displaying themselves in the best light possible.
We all know about hypocrisy. It too can be defined a number of ways:
the practice of professing standards, beliefs, etc, contrary to one's real character or actual behaviour especially the pretence of virtue and piety
the false profession of desirable or publicly approved qualities, beliefs, or feelings, especially a pretense of having virtues, moral principles, or religious beliefs that one does not really possess.
carry fire in one hand and water in the other. To be duplicitous, to engage in double-dealing; to be two-faced, to speak with forked tongue. The expression comes from Plautus; it continues “to bear a stone in one hand, a piece of bread in the other.” Thus, the expression indicates that a person is prepared to act in totally contradictory ways to achieve his purposes.
Is LafargeHolcim – parent company of Aggregate Industries – guilty of virtue signalling, guilty of hypocrisy, carrying fire in one hand and water in the other; pretending to care about climate change one day whilst advancing polluting unsustainable schemes the next?
Our communities and our economy are enduring not only a devastating pandemic but also the rising costs of climate change. Record wildfires, flooding, hurricanes and other extreme weather are upending lives and livelihoods. And science makes clear that future generations will face far greater environmental, economic and health impacts unless we act now.
We’re taking steps toward a #netzero economy, but effectively tackling climate change requires strong federal policy solutions. In the US, we’ve joined 42 leading companies and @C2ES_org in calling for ambitious, durable, bipartisan climate policy.https://t.co/tmfgh2gMcDpic.twitter.com/2CT6JJvr8Q
LafargeHolcim – the world’s largest cement producer with annual CO2 emissions more than many countries – seems eager to call on others to address climate change, but is it doing enough to tackle emissions in its own house?
Despite all the company's assurances over the years that it is taking climate change seriously, LafargeHolcim emitted 148 million tonnes of CO2 in 2019, still 2% higher than 2017.
It was an ideal opportunity for Mr Edwards to explain why Straitgate is so important to the company that it justifies a 23 mile haulage route between quarry face and processing plant, an ideal opportunity to explain why the underlying material at Straitgate is worth the environmental cost of 2.5 million HGV miles.
This is what we wrote:
Dear Mr Edwards,
You will be aware of the intense and growing focus on ESG issues, not only by the public and media, but also by the investment world; LafargeHolcim tapped the latter only last week with an €850 million sustainability-linked bond.
Given that Aggregate Industries claims “sustainability is at the heart of our business, and is incorporated in all of our operations”, we would be interested in any comments you may have about the company’s planning application in Devon for a new sand and gravel quarry at Straitgate Farm.
You may already know of this application. Over the last decade, your company has struggled to address the many constraints linked with this site, not least on groundwater. The irreversible damage to the many surrounding private water supplies and Grade I listed Cadhay from your company’s proposal has been unequivocally set out in a damning report by leading authority Professor Brassington.
Your company’s application is for "up to 1.5 million tonnes of as raised sand and gravel". However, significantly less than a million tonnes of saleable material would be recovered, given that waste accounts for 20% of that figure, and elevated groundwater levels have yet to be factored in. This ignores the fact that similar local sites, Marshbroadmoor and Venn Ottery, respectively yielded 80% and 50% less than forecast due to geological constraints.
However, what sets the Straitgate application apart – at a time that councils and the UK government have declared a climate emergency – is the issue of sustainability.
Your company is proposing a 46 mile round trip to process every as-dug load; a staggering 2.5 million miles in total – before any onward delivery of finished product.
No other UK aggregates operator has 23 miles separating quarry face and processing plant. Clearly this – together with Aggregate Industries’ lamentable progress reducing carbon emissions – sends the unequivocal message to the wider world that sustainability is neither at the heart of your business nor incorporated into all of your operations.
You can google Straitgate for further information.
With the government committing to producing ‘net zero’ greenhouse gases by 2050, the construction industry’s role in safeguarding the future of our planet has never been more prevalent.
While the magnitude of the task facing us in achieving ‘net zero’ is clear, we’re confident that a forward-thinking, progressive industry like ours will take up the mantel and lead the way in demonstrating the lengths we can go to reduce our environmental impact, which will positively impact us all.
So, naturally, we were interested to hear how Mr Edwards squared such fine words with his company's plan for Straitgate. This is what he wrote:
Thank you for your letter dated 23rd November.
At Aggregates Industries we take our responsibility to the environment and communities in which we operate very seriously, which is why it is one of our company's strategic pillars.
In response to your letter, I would like to make you aware that shortly, we will be formally submitting additional information for our 2017 planning application to Devon County Council, which will include transport sustainability data.
This will then be published on the County Council's website and subject to formal planning consultation.
Is anyone surprised by the brevity of Mr Edwards' reply, or the lack of meaningful response to the central issue raised?
Of course, Aggregates Industries has been promising to furnish additional information shortly for more than 3 years now; determination of its application has been extended 11 times as a result. Perhaps this time will be different.
And we’ve already posted about the "transport sustainability data" issue, how Devon County Council suggested to Aggregate Industries that they should ask Exeter University to help with (greenwash away?) the emissions related to Straitgate.
Presumably Mr Edwards' lack of concern about the 2.5 million mile haulage scheme is an indication of "the lengths we [Aggregate Industries] can go to reduce our environmental impact"?
If Aggregates Industries took its responsibility to the environment "very seriously", the company’s application for Straitgate Farm would have been scrapped years ago.
But what is a company to do when it is making no discernible progress on reducing CO2? Does it redouble its efforts, and scrap polluting schemes in favour of more sustainable ones? Or does the company give up publishing CO2 numbers altogether, sweep them under the carpet away from prying eyes, pretend they don’t exist?
Has Aggregate Industries decided on the latter course?
Around this time of year, Aggregate Industries would ordinarily report what progress – if any – has been made on reducing carbon emissions during the previous year.
Our latest #Sustainability Report is here! It includes details of our initiatives to address a number of challenges, including carbon reduction, circular economy, energy efficiency and site restoration all in the face of a changing climate. Learn more https://t.co/BtleHXERkfpic.twitter.com/Tk2itQrlWp
But has Aggregate Industries really given up reporting carbon emissions?
Is it because the numbers stubbornly refused to fall despite best efforts, or is it because the company stubbornly refused to embrace more sustainable ways?
Aggregate Industries' application to quarry Straitgate Farm would of course indicate the latter.
So what sort of company is LafargeHolcim, accused of dumping dirty water into the Seine "for years"?
We have already posted on this subject once, but here is François Petry, CEO of LafargeHolcim France, previously CEO of Aggregate Industries, shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, trying to explain why LafargeHolcim – parent of Aggregate Industries – was found polluting the River Seine in Paris, admitting that the practice was not acceptable, claiming that "strict action plans" have now been put in place to stop it happening again.
Lafarge accusé de déverser des eaux souillées dans la Seine : "nous avons mis en place des plans d'actions extrêmement stricts" selon François Petry, Directeur général de LafargeHolcim France
#ASIalu Lafarge déverse ses eaux usées dans la Seine en toute impunité "depuis des années", nous apprend une enquête implacable de @libe, là où bien d'autres médias n'ont pas creusé ce sujet pourtant sensible, en plein Paris. [payant]https://t.co/wR21hhVgZi
Aggregate Industries is also the company that wants to quarry Straitgate Farm. A watercourse from Straitgate feeds the mediaeval fishponds at Grade I Cadhay House. Numerous concerns have been raised. Is it any surprise? What would happen if a similar pollution event were to happen here?
A spokesperson for the Environment Agency said: "The Environment Agency continues to investigate the incident which affected a large stretch of the River Yealm on 16 November.
"Rainfall had caused contaminated run-off to escape the containment area of a quarry-related operation and enter the river."
