Email   Print

Built to last

Cement is a basic building block of economic growth. Its manufacture also produces twice as many CO2 emissions as aviation. How Bertrand Collomb and industry giant Lafarge are laying the foundations for sustainable cement.

Photo: istockphoto.com/peskyphoto

Homes, offices, schools, hospitals, roads, bridges: They’re sprouting up in emerging economies throughout Asia and Eastern Europe. These countries need cement to keep them on the path of economic progress. But the production of this basic material is a major source of CO2. The cement industry already accounts for 5 percent of global CO2 emissions, twice as much as the aviation industry. Given that China, which is responsible for nearly half the production and use of cement, will continue to build cities that have populations in the millions, the cement sector needs to contribute to saving the planet. Fortunately, that’s exactly what Bertrand Collomb has in mind.

Collomb is honorary chairman of the French firm Lafarge, one of the world’s largest producers of cement and building materials. Active in 76 countries, Lafarge has more than 90,000 employees and a gross income of about $35 billion. Now 65, Collomb ran the company for years and is among the most important advisors to his successor, Bruno Lafont. So how does a major multinational polluter clean up its act?

In a modest office, Collomb pours coffee for his two guests. Outside, the 16th arrondissement of Paris is bathed in watery sunshine. The Frenchman says that for years, Lafarge has felt obligated to consider its responsibility as a polluter. “The CO2 emissions from cement production are a huge and important topic in our industry; no one can avoid it,” he begins. “We realized that long before [former U.S. vice-president] Al Gore began to warn the world.”

He talks about the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where the framework was established for what became the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), a coalition of some 200 international companies. For several years, Collomb chaired this membership association, the slogan of which is “Dedicated to Making a Difference.” This is just one of the items on Collomb’s curriculum vita, along with being a member of the European Round Table of Industrials, a member of think tanks like the Bilderberg Group and the Clinton Global Initiative, as well as a member of the board of the chemical multinational DuPont and the world’s fourth-largest oil and gas company, Total, among others. He says his children tease him about all his memberships. He asks his guests if they’d like sugar and milk in their coffee. S’il vous plaît.

Collomb considers involvement in coalitions and organizations one of the most important tasks of a business leader. It encourages people to think about the way company culture can change, he says, and helps you learn to assess which trends can help restructure a company’s future. “One of the reasons I wanted to spend part of my time outside the company is related to this,” he adds. “As the boss, I believed you seek out information that doesn’t automatically land on your desk from within your company. It is, in fact, the information that comes from outside that spurs your intuition and helps you stay a step ahead of the competition on new developments.”

Of course, as CEO, Collomb also listened to individuals inside the firm. “If I didn’t completely understand something, I learned more about it and looked for people in the company who could explain everything to me,” he says. “They were often found among my advisory staff, but four or five levels lower in the company.”

That shouldn’t come as a surprise. The approach Lafarge’s management takes to human capital—which Collomb says is characterized by attention and respect—appealed to him when he applied for a job there 32 years ago. It played a role in the decision of this engineer’s son to join the company. Be open and curious and don’t be led by money but by people, Collomb learned from his parents at a young age. This view shaped him. Ask him who his gurus are and he rattles off the names of his predecessors at Lafarge.

It was together with those colleagues that he began searching for solutions to the pollution caused by cement production. “When you make cement, you can’t avoid CO2 emissions,” Collomb says. “But we can consider how we can produce less cement or better cement so we can curb emission levels. And we’re looking beyond what we do in the factories. After all, our end product isn’t cement but concrete, which is used to build structures. So we must ask ourselves: How can you build using less concrete? And thinking further: What will the home of the future look like, using less energy? Can we develop products to that end? When you’re the boss, you need to stimulate that way of thinking. It’s also very important that you remain continually open to change and not keep things status quo. You can’t artificially hang on to traditions; you need to have the courage to adapt without losing sight of your core values.”

Unfortunately, Collomb’s welcome words are caught in a reality that’s difficult to embellish. When you make cement, limestone and clay are heated until they melt, blending to form a material called “klinker,” which is mixed with other components to produce cement. The heating process, usually requiring the use of coal, and the resulting chemical reaction culminate in the release of exorbitant amounts of CO2. And unfortunately, cement can’t be recycled; every new house requires new cement.

But Lafarge’s sustainability report reveals the company’s lofty ambitions and the progress it has made toward them in the past year. For example, Lafarge uses energy more efficiently than before and is making increased use of sustainable energy to operate its factories. In addition, it has developed a more sustainable type of concrete that uses less cement, and is using more waste as fuel. The company is also working with the World Wildlife Fund to enable reforestation and preserve nature near its factories.

1 2 NEXT >>
view as a single page