Lafarge Beats Its CO2 Goals

French cement company Lafarge set a goal for itself to reduce its carbon footprint by twenty percent by 2010.  The company has recently announced that it has beaten its goal by a full year.  Lafarge claims to have reduced its footprint by 20.7% as of the end of 2009.  Lafarge plans on continuing its green trend in coming years.

Success came for the French company after it spent nearly 800 million Euros over the last five years to reduce its plants’ footprint.  This money was partially spent in the development of new products with higher levels of sustainability.  Their goal was to help reduce not only their footprint in production, but also of the buildings where their products were being used.  An example of one such product is Thermedia 0.6B which is the first in a line of structurally insulating products.  In addition to money spent, Lafarge has maintained strong ties with the Cement Sustainability Initiative in order to affect a broader change across the entire cement industry.

Despite the positive steps taken by Lafarge, many European-based heavy carbon emitters have come under criticism regarding their manipulation of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) set up by the European Union.  The system works on the principle that companies are granted carbon permits for their emissions which they can buy or sell depending on whether they meet or exceed their quota.  However, due to the economic recessions, the heavy CO₂ producers (energy, steel, and cement sectors) fell short of their forecasted quotas.  These companies now stand to make millions or billions of Euros from the sale of excess permits.  Lafarge alone had excess permits valued at 140 million Euros last year.  Critics are infuriated that these companies can get away with doing nothing to reduce their environmental impact, yet make millions of free money for it.  These critics want the ETS system to be re-evaluated and changed.

Whether Lafarge’s CO₂ reduction stems from actions taken by the company or simply from decreased demand is yet to be seen.  However, you cannot ignore the fact that less CO₂ is being released into the atmosphere from Lafarge plants.  No matter what the cause, the environment has come out ahead.