Sustainability - At the core of our business

Chisom Ekomaru, Sustainability Manager at Ecocem, reflects on the company’s Sustainability Report.

Ecocem recently published its 2022 Sustainability Report. Since our initial report in 2018, we have been working towards increased alignment with international best practices for ESG (Environmental, Social, and corporate Governance) reporting including the GRI (Global Reporting Initiative) framework.

2022 was a year to remember for many reasons. War in Ukraine and its impact on energy costs brought home the reality of energy dependency on fossil fuels and COP 27 reinforced the urgency of keeping 1.5 alive.  Reviewing our latest report reminded me of the broader context for our efforts and the importance of staying focused on carbon reduction. Emissions must peak before 2025 and reduce by 43% by 2030 – only seven years away. The focus was firmly on the need to move from pledges to implementation as the world searches for solutions that can deliver at speed and scale if we are to limit global warming.  

 Our report was launched just after the adoption of the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)[BB1]  and related European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) came into force. These change the reporting landscape- modernising and strengthening the disclosure rules related to non-financial (social and environmental) corporate reporting.

This is my second report for Ecocem and since then we have made some real progress. In 2022, we reported on real momentum in terms of our sustainability goals and compliance as a company, perhaps more importantly with the introduction of our industry-changing scalable low carbon cement technology ACT, which can deliver a 70% reduction in emissions from cement.

Our business is uniquely focussed on low carbon technology solutions and products, and we are working to ensure that our operations reflect and support our ambitions for our industry. 

We continue to report around our four-material topic themes, Workplace, Ethics and Governance, Environment, and Community. Reviewing our progress, I was struck by number of highlights: 

• Industry leading partnerships with Saint Gobain, POINT.P, Cemex France and CB Green, a division of Groupe CB, all intended to accelerate and support the rapid deployment of low carbon cement technology in the cement and construction industries.
• Since 2003, we have prevented over 16 million tonnes of CO2 from being released into the environment, by avoiding production of CO2 in the cement manufacturing process.
• Maintained our safety record of 0 fatalities.
• Maintained 0 judgements / prosecutions[BB1] [KR2] .
• Delivered over 200 educational presentations to our customers on the benefits of low carbon cements.
• Reduced the embodied carbon of our products significantly from 33 KgCO2e/tonne in 2017 to 21KgCO2e/tonne in 2022.
• We continue to invest in research and innovation to accelerate the development of low carbon solutions. 15% of our people work in our innovation team, more than any other cement business. We partner with academics worldwide, ensuring ongoing collaborations that foster continuous knowledge exchange and learning to deliver low carbon solutions at pace.

#WorldOceanDay2022 – Beach clean up for Ecocem Ireland’s team at Shelly Banks beach in Dublin’s Ringsend.

“Technology is no longer the issue. By working with the cement industry, we can radically accelerate a reduction in emissions by 50% by 2030. We intend to work closely with cement producers and make the technology as widely available as possible.” – Donal O’Riain, Founder and Group Managing Director

“Sustainability reporting complements the financial report and together they provide a more complete overview of a business and its future potential the challenge is transitioning from sustainability. The challenge for businesses is transitioning to the new and more rigorous reporting requirements”. – Gavin McMorrow, Group Financial Controller

For more information and to follow our sustainability journey, read more here.