Strategy < Concrete < Customers & Businesses: Lafarge

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Concrete

Strategy

Synergies between the Concrete, Aggregates and Cement Businesses reinforces the Group's positions and provides a competitive advantage in a great many markets. The Concrete Business is particularly innovative and is enjoying significant success with ultra-high performance concretes.

Integration and synergy with the Group’s other Businesses

Lafarge's different Businesses are closely linked to each other. In many markets, the Group's cement and aggregates products are used to manufacture ready-mix concrete. Lafarge drives synergies and vertical integration across its different markets.

These synergies can also be found in R&D. Parallel research programs in cement, aggregates, concretes and additives give the Group a measurable technological advantage.

Concrete in India

Acquisition

66 concrete plants across the country, with total estimated volumes of 4.1Mm³ in 2008 and a market share of approximately 25%: the L&T concrete acquisition in India marks an important step in the strategy to develop Lafarge in emerging markets.

Press release

Innovation as a top priority

Lafarge is dedicated to the production of concretes that deliver high added value to customers.

The Group's R&D is focused on developing the concretes of the future:

concretes with optimized qualities, suitable for made-to-measure products which are robust, esthetic, resistant to cracking and energy-efficient,
concretes adapted to all applications.

Market penetration of value-added concretes has increased. Their sales now contribute to move than 20% of Concrete Business volumes. By 2012, high value-added products should account for 35% of the Group's concrete production in volume.

Concrete without cracks

Extensia™, a new dimension in concrete

Extensia™ concrete was developed for slabs and industrial floors which are subject to heavy traffic and storage loads. Extensia™ offers many advantages:

it limits cracking and reduces the number of costly, unattractive expansion joints,
its formula facilitates manufacture, pouring and formwork removal, resulting in considerable time savings and less physical labor,
it is manufactured using fewer raw materials and does not require steel reinforcement. Moreover, floors made with Extensia™ require less maintenance, which again reduces energy consumption - a real plus for the environment!

Innovative concrete

Turbo-charged construction sites

Chronolia™, an added-value concrete

New Chronolia™ concrete considerably improves working conditions on building sites. Its high mechanical resistance means it hardens within 4 hours compared to 12 hours for normal concrete. That makes a real difference!

Innovative concrete

Protecting the environment
Lafarge's industrial processes have been designed and refined to minimize their impact on the environment. The use of certain additives (which act as effective substitutes) during concrete production can help to reduce the consumption of nonrenewable natural resources. Furthermore, 71% of Concrete & Aggregates sites have installed water recycling systems. Preserving resources

Last update on 11/14/2008

Industrial ecology

How to create value from waste

Large amounts of natural resources, particularly minerals and fossil fuels, are used to manufacture cement. For many years the Group has been working to reduce the environmental impact of its activities by finding ways to obtain value from waste products.

Cement and industrial ecology

Customers & Businesses