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Due to its civil and non-violent nature, it is perhaps the largest Swiss demonstration ever organised. In September, during a classical music concert in the picturesque city of Lucerne, two weather activists glued themselves to the stage. The orchestra stopped working, much to the chagrin of the audience.
After a brief negotiation, conductor Vladimir Jurowski announced a truce: the young protesters would be allowed to make their case, everyone present would listen, and the concert would continue. What wasn’t easy for the protesters wasn’t the end of oil exploration, or everyone being prevented from flying or driving, or the old guard giving up on letting the planet burn. Instead, they demanded anything else: that all Swiss homes be renovated by 2030 so that they can remain cool in summer and warm in winter, while at the same time consuming much less energy.
The Lucerne saga came to an end after four minutes. But the Renew Switzerland movement has staged dozens of protests in the country since 2022, some of them even more disruptive, in addition to the blocking of the large bridge over Lake Geneva by demonstrators also glued to the surface and demonstrators “slowing down” traffic through the demonstrators. Walking in the middle of the busy streets of the city. What those motions are not unusual for is a compelling call for a “built environment” that is less carbon-intensive than carbon dioxide. .
It’s a request that makes sense. Despite all the attention paid to cars, trucks, and planes, it turns out that homes and buildings are the largest source of CO2 emissions in the world, at a staggering 39%. Cement production, ubiquitous in our buildings, bridges and sidewalks, is to blame for about a quarter of those emissions. This is due to the chemical processes and intense heat required to produce it, most of which often involve fossil fuels.
Ultimately, any call to build a greener environment is a call for greener cement and concrete, produced with fewer resources and designed to be compatible with energy-efficient buildings. A serious effort to use more environmentally friendly cement would create structural jobs and reduce the impact on residents. energy bills and bring almost any and all countries and establishments closer to their net-zero targets.
It seems like a win-win situation. So why is eco-friendly cement rarely popular around the world for construction?
A few miles northeast of Lucerne, a Fortune 500 European company is trying to do just that. Holcim, headquartered in Zug, is the world’s largest cement company outside China, with a production capacity of 260 million tonnes per year. It’s been a global giant for decades — it generated more than $30 billion in profits in its last fiscal year — which means it’s guilty of much of its industry’s historical carbon footprint. But Holcim is now looking to be a component of the solution, reaching a low level. cement and concrete with polluting emissions and at the same time create fabrics for energy-neutral buildings.
If Holcim’s eco strategy succeeds, it could secure the company’s continued dominance in its industry and make it a lighthouse for other European and global companies to follow. Over the last decade, it has shown remarkable progress. The question is whether it can keep progressing quickly enough to meaningfully protect the planet—and to exorcise the demons of its own past.
Clemens Woegerbauer, head of Holcim’s Swiss subsidiary, started thinking about low-carbon cement about a decade ago, when a request from Zurich-based structural company Eberhardt came to his desk. The question is as undeniable as it is insoluble: Could Holcim help Eberhardt get rid of his demolition structure, and perhaps recycle it into new cement and concrete?
Removing debris and demolition debris is a regular task for Woegerbauer; in fact, he was known internally at Holcim as “the trash guy. “But the concept of reusing it was new and it happened, in a sense, at the right time and in the right place.
Europeans had used a similar technique since at least Roman times, reusing bricks and stones from older buildings to build new ones. (My own circle of relatives in Belgium owned a heritage in which the remains of an eighth-century church, built with recycled stones from an ancient Roman villa, were discovered. During the 20th century, building codes virtually prohibited the reuse or recycling of demolition waste anywhere in Europe and the world, adding the United States, Holcim’s largest market and source of more than $10 billion in annual revenue. There were smart reasons to be cautious: some shoddy construction fabrics used between the 1950s and 1990s, for example, were found to have a lifespan of only 30 years, leading to a ban on their use. But until recently, several researchers believed that even the most powerful concrete recycling produced a curtain that lacked the strength of its “virgin” equivalent, making it a harmful tool.
However, as Woegerbauer began to address the problem, the mindset around recycled fabrics began to change, especially in landlocked Switzerland. Most of the Alpine country’s population lives on a strip of land nicknamed the “Middle Country. “located between the Alps and the Jura Mountains. Swiss cities, lakes, agriculture and industry will have to share this plateau; The last thing we needed was for this valuable piece of land to be used for structure dumps. As a result, during the 2000s, the practice of recycling structures and demolition debris was well established in Switzerland, and Swiss regulators were keen to expand it.
Woegerbauer and his team had their own reasons for fulfilling Eberhardt’s wishes. First, recycled cement may simply be a new source of income. In any case, Eberhardt had to pay to dispose of his waste and would be happy to pay Holcim to do the same. If Holcim could simply incorporate the waste into new products, it would win twice: once by receiving Eberhardt’s waste and again by promoting its recycled cement products.
It is equally important to know how recycled cement would be compatible with Holcim’s long-term business model. If Woegerbauer’s Swiss team were to square the circle of recycling structural demolition materials, the company could go from villain to hero in terms of CO2 emissions.
Holcim is also undergoing adjustments at the top. In 2017, the company appointed Jan Jenisch, head of the Swiss chemical company Sika, as its new CEO. As an outsider, Jenisch learned that Holcim needed to adapt in order to remain relevant in the 21st century.
Since its founding in 1912 in the small Swiss town of Holderberg (Holcim stands for Holderberg Cement), the company has grown through mergers and volume plays. Cement is a commodity and for a long time the company’s philosophy was that the bigger, the better, and the better. But after Holcim’s merger with France’s former rival Lafarge in 2015, there were virtually no significant acquisition targets left. Equally important, governments and the public are expressing their dissatisfaction with the huge amounts of CO2 emitted each year through the cement industry. For Holcim’s dominance to remain the same, everything had to change.
“When I joined the company, I discovered strong, locally founded companies, 2,300 production sites, on-time supply, the largest construction fabric company in the world,” Jenisch told me. But what carried Holcim to 2017 probably wouldn’t carry it to 2027. or beyond, he also noticed. ” You have to think about how markets will expand in the future,” he said.
These advances come with expansion and new construction, he firmly believed, given the development of the population and the urbanization of the planet. But they would have to build on a different foundation than before: those of innovation and sustainability, rather than those of raw fabrics and volume. . Any other technique would not be supported by society.
Jenisch recruited a few newcomers to carry out his mission, including Magali Anderson, a French engineer who has spent most of her career working on security in the oil industry. Anderson joined the company as head of safety, but soon took on a bigger role: Holcim’s first chief sustainability officer.
The new team temporarily embarked on a new strategy, culminating in the corporate signing of a net-0 commitment in September 2020, with the goal of 2050. Instead of promoting cement, Holcim has reinterpreted its role in the industry as a “decarbonized building. “To outsiders, this might reek of greenwashing, much like a tobacco corporation signaling that it needs other people to quit. But each and every detail of the new strategy was accompanied by a bloodless commercial logic. Decarbonization would either lower prices or create more revenue. .
During a stopover at one of Holcim’s cement plants in the Swiss city of Eclépens, I saw several of the company’s decarbonization mechanisms at work. Holcim had reduced much of its fossil fuel consumption there and created an additional source of revenue through fuel. Instead, waste was burned, and fabrics that Holcim had been paid to dispose of were burned. A live video feed from the kiln showed old shredded tires and biomass being fed into the fire. The plant has also rethought the composition of its concrete: instead of “clinker”, which is obtained by decomposing limestone in a CO2-intensive process, the company uses calcined clay and other low-emission fabrics as much as possible.
In its structural projects, Holcim also sought to build more with less. Adopting practices from Roman times, he experimented with using gravitational forces or steel clamps, rather than mortar, to hold the arch-shaped structures together. use concrete only when it has structural effects, replacing it when imaginable with lighter mixtures of products with less CO2. To compensate for the loss of volume of cement or concrete sold, it would invent new programs for its products.
Eventually, Holcim would adopt a more holistic approach to its role in the structures sector. What if your concrete walls and floors could simply be building elements that could simply be heated and cooled in a carbon-neutral way?What if your concrete could simply be incorporated into green urban architecture, which would be your sworn enemy?
At its renovated global innovation center in Lyon, France, a team of engineers has come up with all kinds of innovations. On a scale in late summer, I could see what those efforts had turned out to be, in just a few short years: an ultra-light layer of roofing insulation, for example, that looked more like chocolate mousse than concrete and was better suited to hot climates. Or concrete walls with combined plant seeds, which at that point could turn the walls into Babylonian hanging gardens. time, as the rain passed through them.
Many of those inventions remain analogous to what concept cars are to automakers: a testament to the company’s acumen and technical prowess, but no product that has a genuine effect today. However, more and more products are crossing the line between theory and practice. A newly completed school in Vienna is a fitting exhibition: completed earlier this year, the school, built entirely with Holcim products, is capable of covering 90 percent of its energy needs through internal geothermal processes, the company says. .
Meanwhile, in France and Kenya, Holcim is experimenting with 3D-printed houses and bridges as a sustainable solution. 3D printing allows contractors and architects to use concrete only where it is strictly necessary; This means that structures built with it retain the same strength with up to 50% less material, Holcim explains.
In 2020, the COVID pandemic brought economic life to a standstill across much of the global economy. Much of Holcim’s global monitoring team was stranded in Switzerland for nearly a year.
For Clemens Woegerbauer and his team, this proved to be an opportunity. After years of investing in R
Susteno has been a great success. ” I was very surprised, but it was smart to see how open the organization is [to our product],” Woegerbauer said. “It’s the right position and the right time. Everything converged.
Soon after, Jenisch and his executive team floored the accelerator on their global decarbonization strategy. In July 2020, Holcim launched Ecopact, a type of concrete with a reduced CO2 footprint of at least 30%, in the U.S., its largest market. In 2021 and 2022, further additions to the “eco” range of products followed, including Ecoplanet, Holcim’s green cement, and Ecocycle, a range of recycled products directly inspired by the Susteno recycling brand.
The years that followed justified Holcim’s strategy and the Swiss inventions that catalyzed it. Today, Ecopact and Ecoplanet are blockbusters, each with more than $1 billion in international sales. The ‘eco’ product line helped Holcim post profits and gains in 2022, and through the fall of 2023, about one-fifth of Holcim’s global sales came from eco-friendly logos. In the U. S. , Amazon has a high-profile visitor from Ecopact, which employs concrete for its new data warehouses in Northern Virginia and gives the logo more credibility in Holcim’s larger market. According to the companies, the concrete harvester used in the task would reduce the CO2 footprint of concrete by 39%.
Holcim has also shown that it can decouple profit growth from greenhouse gas emissions. Its CO2 emissions per ton of cement produced have fallen 29% since the 1990s, the company calculated. The company has also diversified its product range. Since 2020, the company’s CO2 emissions per dollar of net sales have fallen 43%, as a result of a combination of increased prices, a further decrease in the CO2 intensity of its cement and concrete and an increase in sales of other cleaner products. Heavy structure products. Holcim’s overall climate goal of being carbon neutral until 2050 is now subsidized through what enthusiasts call “science-based targets. ” In practical terms, this means that if all corporations acted like Holcim, global warming would be limited to 1. 5 degrees Celsius until 2050, if we exceed the current trajectory of 2. 5 degrees.
Holcim’s recent transformation is a remarkable change. A company that, just a few years ago, was considered a main villain by climate activists is now determined to become an ecological ally. But continuing its sustainability drive, Holcim will want to go beyond its more remote past.
In Switzerland, Holcim is facing a precedent-setting lawsuit by a Pacific Islander organization. The plaintiffs come from the Indonesian island of Pari, one of several Pacific islands severely affected by global warming-induced sea level rise. In a court in Zug, they are demanding compensation from Holcim for the company’s role in emitting greenhouse gases and are to blame for the deterioration of their living conditions. According to a report by the Climate Accountability Institute, commissioned through an NGO supporting the plaintiffs, Holcim and its predecessors are to blame for 0. 4% of all post-war global CO2 emissions, or more than 7 billion tons of greenhouse gases. If the ruling finds Holcim liable, it could open the door to similar cases of affected populations elsewhere, jeopardizing the company’s future.
Regulation is also an obstacle to further growth. In the U. S. , for example, structure codes do not allow for the kind of recycling that Holcim can do in Switzerland. Any visitor from the U. S. If you need to use recycled cement in your concrete structure, you can only do so so so by the company that you need to use recycled cement in your concrete structure. In the case of Amazon’s warehouses, for example, low-carbon cement had to be transported from Spain and then used to make concrete in the U. S. We are in the U. S. to comply with local regulations. Holcim will want to convince more regulators that recycled cement is viable, otherwise the company will face a major hurdle on its sustainability journey.
It is clear that Jenisch is more focused on discussions with regulators than on Holcim’s business in court. ” I don’t think anyone can accept old responsibilities,” he said of the islanders’ lawsuit. The steps we are taking now are more important. That’s what I need to be a component of.
But Jenisch has to get down to business. This summer, Magali Anderson announced her departure from her position as Chief Sustainability Officer at Holcim. Like its predecessor, Nollaig Forrest, the new CSO has no engineering or safety background. She has a deep background in government affairs and communications, skills she honed at other industry teams such as Dow, DuPont, and U. S. fragrance manufacturer Firmenich. Forrest’s main task now, he told me, is to get regulators to embrace Holcim’s vision for sustainability in construction, specifically in the construction sector. The United States and the European Union, where Holcim gets the largest percentage of its sales. One tactic Holcim is considering, he said, is to convince regulators in a large and influential state like California of the effectiveness of Holcim’s approach, with the purpose of creating a snowball effect across the country. This is a proven approach to regulating other green technologies, adding electric vehicles.
Forrest and his colleagues will still have to convince Renovate Switzerland. It’s not that the organization doesn’t appreciate Holcim’s efforts so far. ” As far as we know, there are a lot of smart paintings out there, but [some of them] would possibly be false promises as well,” Marie Seidel, a spokeswoman for the organization, told me by phone. Overall, the organization is still not convinced that a company whose business style is based on cement and concrete can one day be the champion of a carbon-neutral economy. world. ” What our society wants now is a total change in the way we think about the climate crisis,” Seidel said. “If Holcim took this problem seriously, it would avoid buildings that emit CO2, not 30% less. Let’s start tomorrow by Renewing Switzerland, 2050.
This story appears in Fortune. com
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