Last week, LafargeHolcim – parent company of Aggregate Industries – announced annual results for 2020. Net sales were down 5.6% on a like-for-like basis against 2019:
In 2020, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented disruption in the markets where the Group operates.
The company published its Annual Report and Sustainability Performance Report. There was the usual parade of green promises. According to LafargeHolcim's Chairman Beat Hess:
This year, we opened a new chapter on our sustainability journey, as we announced our net zero commitment at New York Climate week, determined to be part of the solution to today’s climate crisis...
These achievements are a great acknowledgement of our teams’ relentless work around the world, making sustainability part of everything we do, and an encouragement to keep raising the bar for ourselves and our industry.
CEO Jan Jenisch claimed:
We accelerated our climate action, from our net zero pledge to the global launch of our ECOPact green concrete, all the way to making it into CDP’s A list for climate. Every ton of cement we produced in 2020 was more carbon-efficient and contained more recycled material than the year before.
It’s hard to believe this is the same company that’s proposing the most unsustainable plan for a quarry anywhere in the UK – where 23 miles would separate quarry face and processing plant.
But if "accelerated our climate action" means more green words in reports, then the company has succeeded. In 2019, LafargeHolcim’s Annual Report mentioned the word climate 65 times, CO2 57 times net zero 0 times. In 2020’s report those mentions had increased to 100, 72 and 39 times respectively.
It’s hardly surprising. Pressure for climate action is increasing. Institutional investors must be placated with promises, pledges and targets, even if it’s unclear how any of them will be met.
But, as we’ve said before, the atmosphere doesn't care about all the green words, pledges and A lists, the atmosphere doesn't care about being more carbon efficient, the CO2kg per ton, it only cares about TOTAL CO2 EMISSIONS.
In 2020, LafargeHolcim emitted a total of 146 million tons of CO2 emissions – about the same as Venezuela. The unpalatable numbers are buried in small print:
But that’s not the full story. According to LafargeHolcim, it has been under-recording and under-reporting millions of tonnes of Scope 3 CO2 emissions. Scope 3 emissions? According to Carbon Trust:
Scope 1 covers direct emissions from owned or controlled sources. Scope 2 covers indirect emissions from the generation of purchased electricity, steam, heating and cooling consumed by the reporting company. Scope 3 includes all other indirect emissions that occur in a company’s value chain.
Scope 3 emissions include:
Purchased goods and services, Business travel, Employee commuting, Waste disposal, Use of sold products, Transportation and distribution (up- and downstream), Investments, Leased assets and franchises
For a company like LafargeHolcim, Scope 3 emissions can be significant. In 2018, for example, LafargeHolcim reported:
For 2020, the company claims it has introduced a "new, more robust methodology for measuring Scope 3 emissions"; the implication being that the previous methodology was not robust.
What was the outcome? LafargeHolcim’s Scope 3 emissions "totaled 29 million tons". The company says this "resulted in an addition of 9.8 million tons of CO2 from figures estimated in 2019".
That’s quite a discrepancy; more than the annual CO2 emissions of Luxembourg.
LafargeHolcim says "this provides a solid baseline for our target to reduce our transportation and fuel-related Scope 3 emissions by 20% by 2030", but the company has clearly been pushing out misleading figures – to the tune of tens of millions of tonnes of CO2 emissions.
Taking this new robust methodology into account, there was an overall reduction of 7.5% in LafargeHolcim’s total CO2 emissions from an adjusted 157.8 million tons (148m + 9.8m) in 2019. Bravo, you might think.
However, given that LafargeHolcim sold 8.4% less cement in 2020 – 190.4 million tons vs. 207.9 million in 2019 – progress looks rather less impressive, implying total CO2 emissions actually rose per unit of material sold. Given the attention LafargeHolcim claims it is devoting to the problem, and the urgency of our climate crisis, that’s concerning.
What’s also concerning is the company's claims on carbon efficiency. LafargeHolcim's main Sustainability Key Performance Indicator is net CO2 emitted per ton of cementitious material. In 2020, this was reported as 555kg net CO2 per ton – down 1.1% on the previous year. The reduction mirrors 2019, down 1.4%, and 2018, down 1%. If 2020’s rate of reduction were to be maintained, the company’s revised 2030 target of 475kg net CO2 per ton would not be met.
As we posted in LafargeHolcim makes “very strong progress” on CO2 in 2019. True or greenwash? the world's largest cement producer is effecting change at a glacial pace.
LafargeHolcim would have us believe that "concrete is the material of choice for a net zero future", that the company can reach net-zero and help solve the climate crisis while continuing to grow cement production. It’s delusional; cement is the source of about 8% of the world's CO2 emissions.
Other polluters have also made net zero pledges. As this article argues:
“Net zero” is their attempt to continue business as usual without addressing what they’re doing to people and the planet.
We already have too much carbon in the atmosphere. We are already experiencing floods, fires, droughts and extreme weather. At this juncture every extra ton produced matters.
Unfortunately, LafargeHolcim is not alone. Georg Kell, chair of Arabesque, a company that provides climate data to investors, said there were still issues with companies’ disclosures of their emissions:
Too many companies are playing the benchmarks to look good
As we argued above, it’s TOTAL CO2 EMISSIONS that matter. This article in the Architects’ Journal agrees, insisting that overall consumption of concrete must fall to prevent irreversible climate change:
To measure the impact of concrete, we must look at the impact of the industry as a whole. Any reductions in carbon intensity have to be placed in the context of total production – which is rising. For assessing environmental impact, it is the total CO2 output that matters, not the output per kg of concrete. If emissions per kg halve, but production doubles, the environmental impact continues to accumulate at the same rate.
In order to meet targets set out in the IPCC 2018 report, CO2 emissions from concrete must essentially fall to zero by 2055. Unless we stop using concrete, the concrete industry must either find a way to produce cement without CO2 as a byproduct, or it must find an alternative to cement.
Efficiency improvements alone will not be enough. Our overall consumption of concrete must fall, and in the context of a rising population, this means a dramatic fall in per-capita consumption.
Any use of a non-renewable resource is fundamentally unsustainable. Concrete uses fossil fuels to make cement, and sand and gravel for the aggregate. CO2 is emitted and limited resources are consumed, so any use of concrete cannot be sustained on long timescales; it is therefore incumbent on people to use as little as possible, and to make the very best use we can of the quantities that we use.
It is important that architects understand, and advise on, the wider impacts of their projects – which means sometimes placing such issues above the commercial interests of their clients. There is now a clear opportunity for the profession to accept a leading role, and its inherent responsibility, in the future development of our planet.
Setting a goal to reduce our emissions won’t do it. The only sensible goal is zero.
It should be clear why. According to Sir David Attenborough:
Climate change is the biggest threat to security that modern humans have ever faced.
Attenborough gives stark warning on climate change to UN - BBC News. We’d be stupid not to listen.🦋🐠🦧 https://t.co/4gkeaZEt3w
— Adrian Campbell (@campbellar) February 23, 2021
