HeidelbergCement joins climate initiative Leadership Group for Industry Transition (LeadIT)
HeidelbergCement has joined the climate initiative Leadership Group for Industry Transition (LeadIT) that gathers countries and leading companies committed to action to achieve the Paris Agreement. LeadIT was launched by the governments of Sweden and India at the UN Climate Action Summit in September 2019 and is supported by the World Economic Forum. Other company members include Vattenfall, ThyssenKrupp, Hybrit, Skanska, Volvo, Scania and LKAB.
“Key for decarbonising our industry is to find, apply and scale technical solutions for carbon capture and utilisation or storage. As one of the world’s largest producers of cement and concrete, HeidelbergCement will lead others to help drive collective action towards achieving carbon neutral concrete for the world. The LeadIt initiative offers great opportunity to accelerate this kind of collaboration”, says Dr Dominik von Achten, Chairman of the Managing Board of HeidelbergCement.
HeidelbergCement supports the Paris Agreement and has the goal of delivering climate neutral concrete across its portfolio latest by 2050. In 2024 the world’s first industrial scale CCS solution will be commissioned in Norway and the target is to have the world’s first climate neutral cement plant in operation already by 2030 through a scale-up of CCS.
“We are actively reducing carbon emissions in all parts of our businesses. Large steps are already being taken through fossil fuel substitution and recycling measures in addition to our CCS-plant in Brevik, Norway, followed by Slite in Sweden as world’s first climate neutral cement plant. Strong partnerships within the private and the public sectors – as provided by LeadIt – are necessary components to reach climate neutrality in our industry”, says Karin Comstedt Webb, Head of Environment, Social and Governance at HeidelbergCement Northern Europe.
“HeidelbergCement is taking an industry-leading approach to cutting carbon emissions, and LeadIT members as well as the Secretariat welcome HeidelbergCement to LeadIT and very much look forward to working together”, says Gökce Mete, Head of the LeadIT Secretariat.
In 2019, as the first company in the cement sector, HeidelbergCement had its CO2 reduction targets verified and approved by the Science Based Target initiative.
