TPO on Straitgate trees confirmed

Aggregate Industries’ consultants had previously recognised that site entrance works and deep-dig road construction at Straitgate Farm could cause the loss of two majestic 200 year-old oak trees, writing: 

the works will potentially interfere with the root protection areas of Trees F, G... and it is likely they will be damaged by the development and need to be felled. 4.1  

They produced a photomontage to show the result:

 

The Planning Inspectors, in their report permitting mineral development at Straitgate Farm, conditioned that all trees outside the mineral working area "shall not be felled, lopped or topped or have their roots damaged", and that specifically trees F and G, either side of the permitted site entrance, "are worthy of protection and should be retained". 

East Devon District Council agreed with Aggregate Industries’ consultants that the proposed works could damage trees F and G, and in March of this year issued a provisional Tree Protection Order 23/0014/TPO, as we posted at the time. 

Today, EDDC has confirmed the TPO, providing these trees with permanent protection, because: 

The trees contribute to the amenity and character of the area and they are considered under threat from development and the impact of heavy machinery and vehicles.

Aggregate Industries – seeming to confirm the trees were indeed at risk – objected to the TPO:

... on the grounds that it is not necessary and that the mechanism for protecting these trees is already secured by condition 6 of the Appeal Decision for sand and gravel extraction at Straitgate Farm and that the only works that may impact on these trees are those that are necessary to implement a planning permission.

However, EDDC were of the view that: 

The detailed plans submitted by Aggregate Industries show both trees being retained but then states that tree F (named as T3 in TPO) and tree G (named as T2 in TPO) ‘will be monitored and only removed if necessary’. This is somewhat ambiguous and raises concern that the trees may not be given the full protection during construction if it’s considered that the trees can be removed ‘if considered necessary’. 

It is noted as stated by the Objection, that the trees are protected by Condition 6 of The Appeal as they are shown as being retained on the plans (albeit with the caveat of ‘will be monitored and only removed if necessary’). However, with the conditions being only short-term and the rather ambiguous wording, it is considered that TPO will therefore help ensure long-term protection and that they are appropriately managed by current and future owners. 

Given that even Aggregate Industries’ own consultants recognised the risk of harm to these trees, there must now be a big question mark over the deliverability of the site access plans. 

TPOs allow the potential for "unlimited fines" in the case of damage: 

Section 210(2) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 provides that anyone found guilty of these offences is liable, if convicted in the magistrates’ court, to a fine of up to £20,000. In serious cases a person may be committed for trial in the Crown Court and, if convicted, is liable to an unlimited fine. Section 210(3) provides that, in determining the amount of fine, the court shall take into account any financial benefit which has resulted, or is likely to result, from the offence.

Could Holcim ever be a ‘CO2 hero’?

Holcim – cement conglomerate and parent company of Aggregate Industries – has been entertaining members of the press at its new Innovation Hub in Lyon, which the company has apparently set up to "showcase its sustainable building solutions and serve as a co-creation lab to accelerate low-carbon, circular and energy-efficient building worldwide."

Remarkably, somebody has come away thinking Holcim is a CO2 hero. How – given that the company has annual CO2 emissions more than many countries – could that possibly be?

Has Holcim dramatically cut its CO2 emissions to net zero – rather than just talk about it? Not according to its 2022 Sustainability Report, where we find Holcim pumped some 78 million tons of CO2 (scope 1 emissions) into the atmosphere in 2022 alone. Holcim claims: 

We reduced Scope 1 emissions to 562 kg CO2 net per ton of cementitious materials, which represented a decrease of 2% on a like-for-like basis versus the prior year. 

Of course, continued progress at that rate and the game’s over. 

Dig a little deeper though and we find that the press at Lyon were briefed by Nollaig Forrest, Holcim’s new chief sustainability officer. Her background is not in science, climate or sustainability, but – according to this article – in "communications and corporate affairs at multiple industrial companies". It’s clearly important to Holcim, with such glacial progress in emission cuts, to at least tell a good story. 

So how did Holcim persuade this journalist of its hero status?

Construction materials alone account for about 8-10% of global carbon emissions. https://t.co/krmgpetf7Z

— FORTUNE (@FortuneMagazine) September 8, 2023

Towards the end of his article, the author in question writes this paragraph: 

What strikes me most about Holcim is how a company can go from villain to hero by embracing the future. When I spoke to Jenisch, [Holcim CEO] he was adamant that the concrete industry wasn’t anything like the tobacco or car industry, fleeing from its responsibilities. And Holcim itself is a future-oriented company, he said, that wants to do its part. "Now that we know the harmful effect [of CO2], we are fully on it," he said. "We are part of the solution." Though the past is "interesting," he said, "it’s more important what action we take now. This is where we want to be part of. It’s more important that we accelerate climate action, with speed and transparency. We don’t want to be greenwashing." 

So, embrace the future, forget about all the damage caused by your past emissions and providing climate reparations for affected communities, keep selling cement at more than 0.5 tons net of CO2 for every ton produced, and become a CO2 hero. Easy. 

But let’s unpack that paragraph above.  

Holcim's CEO claims the concrete industry isn’t fleeing from its responsibilities, however that is exactly what Holcim is doing in the case of Indonesian islanders seeking proportionate compensation from the company for damage to their livelihoods due to repeated flooding as global warming has driven up sea levels, arguing that the company is responsible for 0.477% of global industrial emissions from 1950 to 2021. A spokesman for Holcim said: 

We do not believe that court cases focused on single companies are an effective mechanism to tackle the global complexity of climate action. 

Comment: Rising tide of climate litigation sweeps up Holcim and Danone, along with Shell https://t.co/vACT4ULyu1 pic.twitter.com/JcZo6vgiYj

— Reuters Business (@ReutersBiz) February 14, 2023

And as far as accelerating climate action, we only have to look at this tiny corner of East Devon, and subsidiary Aggregate Industries' plans for an unsustainable multi-million mile haulage scheme for Straitgate Farm, to tell us all we need to know. But NGOs backing the islanders’ action also claim the company is not doing enough to cut its emissions: 

There is some support for this position from a new report by Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor, which ranked Holcim high relative to most of the other 23 companies studied for its net-zero ambition and transparency, but said its strategy only had moderate integrity because it hinges on energy intensity targets, low-quality renewable energy certificates and extensive use of carbon capture storage and usage. 

Finally, when it comes to "we don’t want to be greenwashing", Holcim appears to have put a brake on its Twitter account, but this was one of its last tweets. Greenwashing? You decide.

🟢 We are committed to a nature-positive future.

🐝 That’s why we keep all of our quarries in close harmony with the ecosystems around them.

Discover how we do it 👇#WorldWildlifeDay pic.twitter.com/vWhL6bl8xc

— Holcim (@Holcim) March 3, 2023

Holcim ‘received EU emission allowances for idle cement plant’

Holcim, the parent company of Aggregate Industries, is one of five cement companies to have received €88 million in free EU emission allowances – according to research by the Oil Price Information Service – despite plants sitting idle or only emitting relatively small amounts of CO2.

As Global Cement reports, the companies would have been able to sell the permits or use them to subsidise emissions costs at other plants. 

Nice work if you can get it.

We found that five cement plants - @CEMEX @Holcim @FCC_Group Buzzi Unicem, Portland Valderrivas and Votorantim Cimentos - in Spain and Germany were collectively given 2,317,061 free EUAs over 2019-2022 despite emitting a collective 36,370 mt of carbon during the same period pic.twitter.com/Hs4wtPqvCx

— Humberto J. Rocha (@hjrocha94) September 6, 2023

Tungsten West warns of insolvency risk

Tungsten West warns of insolvency risk in race to secure critical UK permits https://t.co/IR7Mfqs3l9

— FT Markets (@FTMarkets) September 14, 2023

Tungsten West’s market capitalisation has fallen from more than £120mn in April last year to less than £5mn. The shares were down 35 per cent following Thursday’s announcement to 2.44p. 

Tungsten West last month applied to the Environment Agency, England’s environment watchdog, for the final permits that it needs for the processing plant. There had been concerns from local residents that the plant would generate nuisance, low-frequency noise. [Neil Gawthorpe, chief executive] said he was “confident” of securing the permits. 

Provided the permits are secured, Tungsten West would need to raise £25mn of debt and £35mn to £40mn of equity to bring the mine back into production by 2025, according to Gawthorpe.

UK construction orders slump

UK construction companies suffer the biggest plunge in new orders in more than three years after a prolonged slump in housebuilding weighed heavily on the sector https://t.co/HlrsfRKkSd

— Bloomberg (@business) September 6, 2023

Aggregate Industries’ Straitgate update for July & August

Aggregate Industries has provided the following updates of what the company has apparently achieved over the last two months in relation to implementing its permission to quarry Straitgate Farm. 

In July: 

Nothing to update this month other than to report that following the third letter to owners of the PWSs in June we now have 26 of the 39 properties identified wanting to be part of the monitoring scheme.

In August: 

Just to confirm there are no updates for August.