Sustainable Development

Lafarge is making a commitment because:

• This commitment is in line with strong values, deep-rooted in the Group for a long time: Lafarge has been committed for many years to a sustainable development and social responsibility approach, convinced that creating long-term value is stronger and more sustainable when the interests of local communities and the environment in which they live are taken into account.
• For around 20 years, Lafarge has been diversifying its geographical portfolio and implementing a development strategy in growth markets where demand for construction material is high but also where the social and health environment is sometimes difficult.
• An active health policy is the only way to enable the Group to perform well and make it possible to reduce absenteeism, a fall in productivity, replacement costs, training of new recruits, etc.

In 2006 Lafarge devoted 1 million euros to the fight against AIDS. In 2008 the budget against AIDS and malaria has increased to 1.8 million euros. In the case of malaria and AIDS, all employees, their families, community members, and sometimes subcontractors, benefit from these initiatives.

The Group operates in 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa: in 2008 this represented around 7000 employees, or 9% of the total Lafarge workforce.

Faced with AIDS within its teams and the communities surrounding it, in 2001 Lafarge committed to an initiative to fight this scourge in the region through:

• The establishment of a specific structure:
  • with 1 Health Committee for the entire Africa region which supervises the progress of work and very closely monitors the various indicators in place,
  • and with peer-educators, employee-volunteers who take part in prevention work on the ground.
• Partnerships to benefit from the local knowledge and experience of real experts:
  • global partnership since 2003 with the NGO (non-governmental organization) Care to help to establish methodology and structure, and to transfer healthcare knowledge and management,
  • local partnerships as close as possible to the ground: USAID (United States Agency for International Development) in Uganda (Hima Cement) and in Nigeria (AshakaCem), GTZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technischne Zusammenarbeit - German technical cooperation), etc.
• Study work and exchange of best practice between big international companies operating on the continent: through the group of private investors in Africa (PIA, Private Investors for Africa) and the global coalition of companies against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria (GBC, Global Business Coalition).

This policy enables a variety of actions to be established on the ground in relation to employees and local communities:

• work to build awareness and educate about AIDS, STDs and opportunistic diseases,
• prevention programs and distribution of condoms,
• free, anonymous screening, carried out on a voluntary basis and accompanied by advice,
• anti-retroviral treatments for those infected, etc.

A parasitic disease carried by mosquitoes, malaria is the biggest cause of death in children under 5 in sub-Saharan Africa. Malaria kills 1 person every 30 seconds and significantly hampers the continent's economic development: it causes on average a third of absenteeism in the company and its impact on growth is estimated at 1.3% each year.

Malaria is a very common disease in the sub-Saharan countries in which Lafarge operates, excluding South Africa and Zimbabwe. Lafarge has been tackling the problem since 2006 and has included it in its health policy. The objective? To reduce the impact of malaria on health and productivity by establishing a prevention and health program inspired directly by the methodology used to combat AIDS:

• campaigns of prevention and information about the disease,
• free distribution of mosquito nets impregnated with insecticides (4 to 5 per family),
• spraying of insecticides in houses,
• disinfestation of breeding grounds through cleaning of water,
• distribution of preventive treatment to pregnant women and health checks during pregnancy,
• distribution of anti-malarial treatment.

Once again, partnerships in place make it possible to benefit from the knowledge of particular organizations: with the American NGO Population Services International (PSI) in Malawi and Zambia and Health Initiative in the Private Sector (HIPS) for an ambitious project in Uganda.

In the context of its Sustainable Development Ambitions 2012 plan, the Group has committed to extending its work against AIDS and malaria by 2010 to the other major developing countries in which it operates (China, India, etc.)

But malaria and AIDS are not the only diseases to affect Group employees and their surrounding communities. Lafarge encourages its teams to carry out initiatives suited to local health challenges. In sub-Saharan Africa for example, this is demonstrated by a more global health approach based on:

• Infectious and parasitic diseases (diarrhoeal diseases, meningitis, etc.), with:
  • programs building awareness of how to act healthily in everyday life,
  • vaccination programs, etc.
• Chronic and degenerative diseases (hypertension, cancer, diabetes, etc.) with:
  • training modules covering cancers,
  • free mammograms for all female employees and employees' wives (in Nigeria), etc.