Monday 14 December 2020

LafargeHolcim makes CDP’s climate change A List – but what’s the reality?

Environmental concerns have risen up the business agenda this year, as major investors have demanded greater transparency and action on climate change from the big polluters – the cement industry included. Even LafargeHolcim’s CEO has admitted “We have to improve our operations to be more sustainable”. 

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
A group of 41 scientists have however pointed out that carbon neutrality targets are often not as ambitious as they sound, relying on problematic carbon offsets and unproven technologies:
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.


Is it all smoke and mirrors? 

In a speech before a UN event marking five years since the Paris accord, Greta Thunberg claims 'We are speeding in the wrong direction' on climate crisis: 
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.

Is LafargeHolcim’s A grade all about empty words and distant hypothetical targets?


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? 

Yes, the company has set some distant hypothetical targets, but surely "tackling climate change" means having actually achieved something, a meaningful reduction in CO2 emissions for example. In the real world, LafargeHolcim emitted 148,000,000 tonnes of CO2 in 2019 alone, 2% up on 2017. 

Remember that Aggregate Industries has in the past set distant hypothetical targets for CO2 reduction. None were ever hit. In fact, instead of CO2 emissions going down, they went up. We previously posted that If AI’s record is an example of corporate action on climate change, we’re all screwed.  

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? 

Aggregate Industries claims:




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.
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