Lafarge Implements Green, Circular Economy with Geocycle for Sustainability

By Bennett Oghifo

As the global community agrees that climate change is a threat to human existence, heads of governments have seen the imperative of factoring climate response into national development plans.

Businesses are also being encouraged to take responsibility for environmental sustainability in their production lines. Last week, the United States White House’s Special Envoy for Climate, Mr. John Kerry brought together 40 heads of state for two days of virtual climate talks on what nations need to do to curb planet-warming emissions, identifying the moment as a historic economic opportunity.

“I think the reason the banks and asset managers are pledging to net zero is because they know this is an area where the demand is going to be,” Kerry said in an interview with Bloomberg. “And they believe they’re going to be able to invest and make money.”

That message fits with one of President Joe Biden’s consistent climate themes. The green transition will generate millions of jobs and trillions in investment opportunities, all of which can be shared around the world.

The second day of the summit brought together executives, labour leaders, bankers and technology developers. There was consensus that fighting climate change can bring about an economic boon, marking a big shift from the recent past in which shifting to clean energy has been dismissed by many as simply too expensive.

In fact, Kerry stressed in the interview, the cost of ignoring the climate crisis is now higher than the cost of fighting it. And the benefits are increasingly obvious. As he told participants at the summit on Friday: “The world’s largest market in history is opening before our eyes.”

Lafarge Africa Plc seems to have their eyes on the benefits in the new investment scenario and has lashed on to it with its sustainability processes.

The commitment of Lafarge Africa to circular/green economy was focused on by the Chairman, Mr. Adebode Adefioye while presenting the 2019 Sustainability Report to stakeholders recently.

Adefioye said, “We believe our four paths to more sustainable construction: climate and energy, circular economy, environment, and community, embody our company’s ethos and our goal towards a sustainable future. Looking back at the previous year, I feel extremely proud of many great feats Lafarge Africa Plc has achieved. We are making significant strides in developing and innovating our products to consistently exceed our consumers’ expectations.

“In addition to our circular economy actions towards cleaner production, Lafarge Africa Plc is also working to combat the negative externalities that come about during the process of our mining and environmental activities. So far, we have achieved afforestation of over 15 hectares of land; these areas of land are now completely green with trees that can be used for ornamental and environmental purposes. This rehabilitated land was backfilled with indigenous trees and is currently being maintained to prevent withering or deterioration.”

Also, he said “26,000 tree seedlings were planted across our quarry locations as we work to further enhance our positive impacts on our planet,” stating that Lafarge Africa Plc is continuously taking strides “towards a more sustainable Nigeria!”

Emphasising the report’s theme, “Driving sustainable innovation and growth through partnerships”, the Country CEO Lafarge Africa Plc., Nigeria, Mr. Khaled El Dokani said, “We made excellent progress through our alternative energy and recycling strategy. In line with this, we successfully signed an MoU with the Food and Beverage Recycling Alliance (FBRA), a consortium of consumer goods corporate organisations, to reuse their PET bottles while contributing to efforts in minimising the problem of waste management within our society. These plastics will be reused for energy generation in our kilns. As an environmentally conscious company, we have placed great emphasis on the importance of protecting our environment while still striving to increase our energy and resource efficiency.

“Our Geocycle facility, launched in 2018, has increased our alternative energy source from 9,797 tonnes of waste in 2013 to 90,819 in 2019; a total of 827% increase.”

Lafarge Africa’s Geocycle facility was launched as a part of their business that offers waste management services to a variety of waste generation sectors. “This was necessitated by the environmental challenges facing Nigeria – approximately 58 million tonnes of waste are generated annually, 90% of which are dumped, resulting in serious environmental impact,” said the Country CEO.
“The launch of Geocycle in Nigeria illustrates our commitment to building a circular economy that reaches beyond the building materials sector. Geocycle is Nigeria’s first full-fledged professional waste management service provider, handling waste from different sectors in a safe, sustainable and environmentally – friendly manner.”

In his discussion recently at Lafarge Africa Plc Sustainability Forum, Khaled El Dokani said, “Through our Geocycle business, we collect waste directly from municipalities and industries, pre-process it in platforms and co-process (or reuse) it in our cement plants. Through co-processing (the complete destruction of waste in our cement kilns) we recover energy and recycle materials from different types of waste, ranging from household plastics to industrial chemicals.”

He said the activities of Geocycle have strong environmental benefits for communities; “they reduce the volume of landfilled waste, save public funds and create a cleaner living environment.”

According to him, sustainability is termed the ‘triple bottom line’, because it involves a commitment to economic, environmental and social objectives.

He said Global network has presence in more than 50 countries in all continents. More than 10,000 customers served worldwide, 2,000 employees worldwide dedicated to waste management.

They are available for waste management in the Nigerian Oil & Gas industry. Most waste pre-treatment and co-processing projects were planned for delivery last year in readiness for full geocycle global scope of services.

Current waste materials handled are PETs, waste tyres, laminated plastics, laminated papers, waste oils, spent bleaching earth, wood wastes, palm wastes, waste oils, agro-processing wastes, treated drilling mud ash and other special wastes.

According to Folashade Ambrose-Medebem, Communication, Public Affairs and Sustainable Development (CPASD) Director, Lafarge Africa Plc., the company has a 5-Year journey that has been one of progressive transformation.

“We have fully integrated the LafargeHolcim’s Sustainability Strategy which provides us with a measurable pathway to improve our overall Sustainability performance, and ultimately guides us through our commitment to create value for our business and engender positive impact for the society at large. At the LafargeHolcim Group and in furtherance of this commitment, the appointment of the Chief Sustainability Officer and serving on the Executive Committee affords a great opportunity to reinforce leadership and adopt a horizontal approach to Sustainability while entrenching Environment, Social and Governance across our business.”

She said, “To attest to this commitment, Lafarge Africa was ranked fourth best Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability Company in Nigeria by Forbes Africa. Our commitment to driving sustainable innovation and growth has been demonstrated through our impact in the last 5 years.”