Building the Foundation for Future Society

 

Our unwavering commitment to minimizing the environmental footprint of our operations are demonstrated through the adoption of state-of-the-art green manufacturing technologies to reduce CO2 emissions, and the responsible use of non-renewable natural resources and awareness-raising activities in which our employees and stakeholders are engaged on a large scale. We have organized various environmental protection campaigns and a continuous improvement programme; the latter has attracted more than a hundred new ideas contributing to environment protection since its launch in 2008.

 

Since the very first days of its operation in Vietnam, HVL’s plants were designed and built with state-of-the-art technologies enabling green manufacturing. Every year, an appropriate investment fund is reserved for energy efficiency at the local country level as well as the Group level.

 

Technologies are important. Holcim has made major investments to reduce our carbon footprint and use non-renewable natural resources in the most optimal way, as well as to reduce the electricity consumption of the plants. As an example, Holcim has invested US$18 million in a Waste Heat Recovery installation in Hon Chong, which allows us to cover 25 percent of our electricity needs from the recovered energy of the cement kiln and reduce CO2 emissions by 25,000 tonnes per year.

Another major contributor to our CO2 reduction is our Geocycle business with its co-processing technology. Over the last 8 years since its establishment, 235,483 tonnes of waste has been co-processed in our kilns, which means significantly decreased total CO2 emissions and minimized negative impact on the environment of these wastes compared to land-filling or uncontrolled incineration.

 

HVL’s environmental commitment does not only stay at top management level but is disseminated across the organization, through environmental awareness campaigns and house-keeping activities which engage thousands of employees and stakeholders in events such as Earth Hour, World Environment Day, Summer Campaign, etc. Together, they clean up their living and working places, clear drainage systems and plant trees.

 

The annual Summer Campaign jointly organized with IUCN and local authorities in the areas around our plants (Kien Luong Dist. - Kien Giang province, Phu My town - Ba Ria - Vung Tau province, Nha Be Dist. and Dist. 2 – HCMC) since 2009 aims to raise local community's awareness on major environmental issues and how to limit their impacts, through practical environmental protection activities. With a different theme each year (Waste Management (2009); Water, Sanitation and Public Health (2010); Adaption to climate change (2011) and Green Quarter (2012), this campaign has attracted the participation of hundreds of HVL employees and local people each year.

 

We always appeal to all stakeholders to engage in environment protection performance, because we believe that the more people join force in this journey, the faster the good action and right awareness will be spread.

 

First things first, "Building a foundation for future society" is Holcim’s vision, not objective. With this vision, we consider it our responsibility to provide future society with adequate infrastructure, appropriate capabilities and a sustainable living environment to meet their needs.

To make it happen, we place Sustainable Development at the heart of our business strategy to create value for our employees, communities and for society at large by balancing three elements: economic, social responsibility and environment. Among our SD priorities are sustainable construction and social commitment.

 

Sustainable construction is an obvious solution, for Holcim has developed different innovative solutions to meet society’s needs to build, today and tomorrow. Sustainable construction or Green Building is one of the areas where we have invested a lot of time and effort to develop solutions for Vietnam. Holcim has supported the VGBC to develop the Lotus system in Vietnam as well.

 

For example, Holcim offers cement and readymix concrete that complies with the Vietnamese Lotus standards as well as international Green labels such as LEED (US) or GreenMark (Singapore).

 

We have also brought sustainable construction concepts and expertise into our CSR activities, especially in community infrastructure development projects such as medical clinics, children's playgrounds, and community centres, and use them as showcases to demonstrate how a construction project can be environmentally and user-friendly by using Holcim’s green building products.

 

Infrastructure development is just a part of our social responsibility which is a cornerstone of our commitment to sustainable development. Our CSR also focuses on education and community development. At Holcim, we aim to contribute to the communities in which we operate through investment and engagement, and we believe that by fulfilling our social responsibilities we can add value to our business, further contributing to our mission to provide the foundations for society’s future. We are committed to creating safe and healthy working environments at our sites and around our operations, and being a trusted partner in each community by offering programmes that build up the capacity of these communities and organizations so that they can become more self-reliant and stronger communities that can cope with any change in the unpredictable world.

 

These approaches are well integrated into our strategy system to ensure consistency and synergy across the organisation to build and maintain a good foundation for future society.

 

As co-chairman of VBCSD, this year HVL works together with members to promote activities in 4 sections: Communication and awareness-raising, Training for capacity building, Research and International Cooperation. In parallel, HVL also gives recommendations for the white paper on efficient use of energy to minimize impacts of climate change for government approval.