Climate change and Energy

Climate change is a defining challenge for the 21st century and the construction sector as a whole. As a major emitter of greenhouse gases, we are aware and accept our responsibility to minimize and offset these emissions through our actions. Therefore we have developed a comprehensive climate and energy strategy based on three areas: improving building energy efficiency, reducing our emissions, and promoting responsible climate and energy policies.

A comprehensive climate change and energy strategy revolving around three areas

Cement production and CO2

Because clinker, cement’s main ingredient, requires to be heated at very high temperature (1 450°C), cement production is associated with high level of CO₂ emissions. A major player of the cement industry, Lafarge is also a major emitter of greenhouse gases with direct emissions of 89.8 million tons of CO₂ in 2014 and an additional 11.3 million tons from energy purchased and emissions associated with the transport of our products.

At the same time, cement and concrete can make a positive impact towards meeting the challenges of climate change by providing energy efficient construction solutions.

Improving building energy efficiency

Buildings energy consumption

Today, buildings consume 90% of their total energy during usage through heating, lighting and air-conditioning. With existing technologies, including cement and concrete based solutions, it is possible to reduce this energy consumption by 60-80%.

As a leading building materials manufacturer, we have developed a number of solutions to improve energy efficiency in buildings:

high performance insulating concretes and construction systems;
positive energy houses built in partnership with home builders;
solutions for sustainable cities developed with urban planning agencies.

We are also leading the EEB initiative (Energy Efficiency in Buildings) within the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) in order to achieve 80% reduction in building energy consumption by 2050.

As a signatory to the Manifesto for Energy Efficiency in Buildings, we have reached 12% reduction in energy consumption across our offices in one year.

In Spain, we are working on Madrid 0.0, which will be the first NZEB (near zero energy building) housing in Madrid. The challenge of climate change is pushing us to innovate in solutions like Hydromedia™ or Agilia® screed A.

Estefania, Architect and Construction Specialist - Spain

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“In Spain, to contribute to building durable cities, the Lafarge team is developing innovative low-energy projects. The main one we are working on is called Madrid 0.0, and the aim is to be the first NZEB (near zero energy building) housing in Madrid. The first phase of the project was a competition opened to architects in order to provide the first ideas to continue with the execution project. Partner of the project, Lafarge will provide cement and concrete solutions for the housing project. Thus we have been working together with the participating architects to help them integrate our solutions into their design proposals. As a Construction Specialist for Lafarge, I accompanied the architects on the choice of material considering not only their construction properties but also how they would reach the zero-emission objective set by the competition. It was a great experience, very challenging and I look forward to working on more projects like this in the future. The challenge of climate change is pushing us to innovate in solutions like Hydromedia™ or Agilia® screed A; solutions that contribute to reduce the consumption of energy, and to improve the behavior of efficient energy systems in housing.”

Estefania, Architect and Construction Specialist - Spain

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Reducing direct and indirect emissions

A complete strategy to reduce direct and indirect emissions

Lafarge was the first cement company committed to reduce its CO₂ emissions. Today, our target is to reduce our CO₂ emissions per ton of cement by 33% by 2020. End of 2014, we had already achieved a 26.4% reduction.

We have focused on three established levers to reduce our emissions:

Emissions from our industry
- We constantly work on improving kiln energy efficiency through the implementation at all our cement plants of a world-class operating model.
- We have significantly improved our use of alternative fuels, reaching an average substitution rate of 20.7% in 2014, resulting in a CO₂ reduction of 6.3 million tons. Besides, our biomass fuel use accounted for 38% of our overall alternative fuel use in 2014 – significantly higher than the 30% we targeted in our 2020 Sustainability Ambitions program.
- Accordingly to our customers’ requirements, we continuously reduce the quantity of clinker in our cement, mostly responsible for greenhouse emissions.
- In addition to addressing industrial performance, we are also harnessing R&D to develop new lower carbon cements.

Emissions from electricity generation

Where it is feasible and economically viable, we make efforts to use renewable energy to reduce our CO₂ emissions linked to electricity generation, mainly buying energy from more sustainable sources.

Emissions from transportation of products

At country level, we work on optimizing distribution towards rail and water transport to reduce our CO₂ emissions related to product and materials transportation.

Lafarge’s low-carbon innovative products contributing to fight climate change

In some countries, Lafarge advocates for changing building codes, norms and standards to accept new low-carbon innovative products.

Our R&D teams are currently engaged in pre-industrialization work for a new generation of lower-carbon Aether® cements, which provide similar performance in a range of applications, but with an overall carbon footprint reduced by 25-30%.

We are also working with US start-up Solidia Technologies to industrialize a new solution that could reduce the carbon footprint of precast concrete by up to 70%.

Promoting strong climate and energy policy

Bruno Lafont, Lafarge Chairman and CEO

We are strong advocates of responsible energy and climate policies, particularly through our participation and leadership in associations such as European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT) and World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). These key positions helped us support the introduction of policies that eliminate subsidized fossil fuels, establish a meaningful price on carbon while avoiding ‘carbon leakage’, and promote long-term price stability to avoid volatility in carbon markets that would be detrimental to investment.

Bruno Lafont, Lafarge Chairman and CEO, takes part and leads all kinds of events to discuss the role that the private sector can play in the development of solutions to fight climate change. For example, Bruno Lafont is co-chairman of the Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI) and Energy Efficiency in Building (EEB) initiative run by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), and a member of the Executive Committee of the WBCSD. He chairs the Energy and Climate Change working group of the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT), and is also Chairman of the Sustainable Development Commission of the Medef, the French employers' federation.

We also believe that policies should also encourage energy efficiency and innovation in the value chain, especially in the building sector, to lead to greater reductions in CO₂ emissions.

Public position: Our messages in view of an agreement on climate change at Paris COP21 (pdf, 88.78 KB)

Timeline: Lafarge’s commitment to fight climate change
#Climattitude

1991: Lafarge launches its global energy plan as part of its 3-year technical plan.

2001: Lafarge makes commitment to reduce CO₂ emissions per ton of cement by 20% by 2010 (from a 1990 baseline).

2009: Lafarge reaches emissions reduction target one year in advance, achieving -21%.

2010: Lafarge sets a 33% target emission reduction by 2020 (from a 1990 baseline)

2014: Lafarge reduced by 26.4% its CO₂ emissions per ton of cement.

It’s the mindset that brings together a range of our initiatives to fight climate change.

Our Climate change and Energy strategy

Climate Change and Energy brochure (pdf, 3.94 MB)

Sustainability Report

Read the entire report

Our solutions to fight climate change

Thermedia®, a new generation of insulating concretes

What if concrete could help cut buildings’ electricity bills and make cities greener and more sustainable? With our range of insulating concretes Thermedia®, it is possible. Their formulation improves insulation and energy performance of residential buildings and office space by reducing heat loss.

Lafarge lower carbon cements

Cements with less clinker and less CO2 emissions, but with high level mechanical performance and great workability: this is the combination provided by our lower carbon footprint cements. Not to mention they also improve the long-term strength of concrete for constructions, buildings and infrastructure that last longer!