Sustainable Development

By signing an initial partnership in 2000, Lafarge became the WWF's leading industrial "Conservation Partner".

First renewed in 2005, a new partnership has been agreed in 2009 for 4 years. The objective remains the same: to formalize a shared ambition to combine economic constraints, environmental respect and respect for people.

In 2009, Lafarge and WWF have jointly identified key areas to which the Group has made practical commitments:

• Climate change with the continuation of the CO2 emissions reduction program based on targets calculated and defined jointly in 2001.
• Persistent pollutants through improvements to monitoring and reporting of polluting emissions with the aim of reducing them in due course.
• Water consumption by developing Lafarge's understanding of its water consumption and define concrete action plans to reduce it.
• Biodiversity by the use at a number of sites of the biodiversity indicator and quarry rehabilitation management system developed jointly over the last 2 stages.
• Sustainable construction through the promotion of sustainable construction products and systems all along the building construction chain.

 
The Sustainability Ambitions 2012 program extends this partnership and sets ambitious targets, which have been quantified and had deadlines set, in relation to health, safety, CO2 emissions, quarry rehabilitation, etc.

Some examples:

• each of Lafarge's 2000 sites must carry out an environmental audit every 4 years,
• 85% of quarries must have a rehabilitation plan (achieving a constant rate of 100% is not possible sue to regular acquisitions of new quarries and the complexity of the process).

Lafarge provides materials and volunteer staff to build or renovate housing for underprivileged families in 25 countries.

The Eco-City project, in South Africa, mobilized Lafarge and local NGOs. to build environmentally-friendly housing at an affordable price.

The poor neighborhood of Midrand, in the suburbs of Johannesburg, suffers from a housing shortage. Lafarge donated 300 tons of cement and 70 m³ of concrete to construct 30 houses which use renewable solar energy. The result is a reduction in the consumption of coal, responsible for respiratory diseases among 30% of children.

The Group provides material, financial and human support for similar projects in Romania. It supplied plasterboard and other materials for the construction of houses in four cities: Beius, Pitesti, Radauti and Cluj. Employees donated their time to help with the work.

Since 2003 and the 1st partnership, Lafarge has worked alongside CARE in the fight against HIV/Aids by implementing prevention, screening and treatment programs.
A Health Committee for the African region has also been set up to establish indicators, coordinate actions and share best practices. The Committee is made up of a health coordinator from each subsidiary, a Group representative, a CARE representative and a medical adviser.

With the renewal of the partnership in 2009, Lafarge and CARE have chosen to work together on 3 programs:

• Health: spreading the methodology of combating Aids and malaria to other countries.
• Method: developing a tool for assessing the social and economic impact on local communities of the actions implemented by the Group in emerging countries.
• Housing: launching a program aiming to enable the poor in emerging countries to have access to higher-quality housing.