Lafarge Africa Plc, a member of LafargeHolcim, the world foremost player in building materials manufacturing, has once again reaffirmed its commitment to sustainable development, with special focus on the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, SDG which is entrenched in its 2030 Sustainability Ambitions. The international company is underscoring this statement as it turns 60 in its business operations.
It would be recalled that more than 190 world leaders signed The SDG agreement in 2015, committing to help end extreme poverty, fight inequality & injustice, and fix climate change among others. Lafarge’s sustainability strategy is built on four key pillars of – Climate, Circular Economy, Water and Nature, and People and Communities. This guides its operations in communities in over 90 countries. In a recent sustainability report for the Nigerian operations, the Country Chief Executive Officer, Michel Puchercos said Lafarge is taking significant steps to continue leading in sustainability in Nigeria including promoting environmentally friendly processes across all its plants.
Sustainability is at the heart of Lafarge Africa’s operations; the company also regards sustainability as an important way of contributing to the development of countries and communities. In Egypt, Lafarge is said to have just invested EG £200 million in projects to convert household waste to energy. In Ewekoro and Sagamu where Lafarge’s operations began in Nigeria 60 years ago, Lafarge has pioneered similar alternative energy projects.
Lafarge Africa is one of the few manufacturing companies in Nigeria where alternative fuel, especially biomass is used significantly to fire the kiln in a major manufacturing process. It started in 1995 when many other manufacturing companies had not even considered it as a possibility. A young engineer at the company was saddled with the task of experimenting with alternative and clean fuel. It took three tedious months to come up with enough rubber chips to fire the kiln for half an hour. The result was a 75% decrease in gas consumption and it was perhaps the first time alternative fuel was used in any cement plant in Nigeria. The company has not relented since then. By the third quarter of 2017, Lafarge Africa reported 44 percent alternative fuel substitution rate at the Ewekoro I plant.
In the south western region of Nigeria where oil palm plantations are not hard to find, Lafarge now uses palm kernel shell (PKS) as a substitute to fossil fuel in its manufacturing process. This means employment for the locals who help in sourcing the product. Apart from supporting the local economy, using this alternative also helps create a final destination for the biomass which was becoming a waste disposal challenge. The abundance of palm kernel shell as a waste product goes back to the 1990s and early 2000. Then it was used by a few companies as solid fuels for steam boilers. Meanwhile, in a typical palm oil plantation, almost 70 percent of the fresh fruit bunches is waste in the form of empty fruit bunches, fibres and shells, as well as effluent.
Lafarge is cleaning up the environment, providing jobs in the local community, empowering members of its host communities and contributing significantly to developing the economy by creating a new business and stream of income from waste.
Lafarge is also committed to improving livelihoods and social amenities in its host communities. As part of the People and Communities pillar of the 2030 LafargeHolcim Sustainability plan, the company recently inaugurated Laboratory equipment at the Health Centre it built for Egbado Ajegunle in Ogun State to offer essential healthcare to the people in the community, making it easier for them to access medical care within their vicinity. The health centre is fully equipped, and the indigenes continue to receive primary health access at the facility at no cost.
While attention is paid to the health of people, the company is also seeking other ways to improve the overall quality of lives of the people which also prompted the installation of a substation and electrification of Oke Oko Egbado community also in Ogun State. These different community projects are executed in all Lafarge’s host communities across Nigeria based on the needs of each community.
In recognition of its consistent commitment to sustainability, the company emerged as the Best Company for Clean & Affordable Energy and Best Company for Education at the 2018 edition of the Sustainability Enterprise and Responsibility Awards (SERAS) CSR Africa Awards. This is following its emergence as the Best Company in Stakeholder Engagement and the Most Outstanding Company of the Decade at the 10th edition of the same Awards.
In the year 2017, the company invested heavily in diverse social investment programs and initiatives throughout the country and directly impacted more than 450,000 beneficiaries across its host communities and Nigeria. Hundreds of the youth who benefited from such interventions in terms of scholarship, according to reports say they would always be grateful to the company for supporting them as they work towards their dreams.
For example, final year student of accountancy at the Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta, Gbemisola Tolulope from Papalanto community has been on the company’s scholarship program all through her tertiary education. She could not imagine her life without the scholarship. The scholarship funds come through for her every time business is slow for her father who is a contractor and her fashion designer mother.
“Lafarge has touched my life in a very large way, especially through financial support. Because they actually pay my school fees and other payments that I need [for] school, in that way Lafarge has really helped me. They have been a lot of help to me,” Tolulope said.
Hassan Elizabeth Adeola from Akinbo community recounts the role played by Lafarge in her education at the Ibarapa Polytechnic, Eruwa. She said the bursary she received from Lafarge was not only enough to pay her school fees but some of the funds were given to her parents to support their businesses.
“Lafarge has been so good to me, they help me pay my school fees. And I use the remaining change to support my parents when they don’t have much,” the 22-year-old Civil Engineering student said.
The story is slightly different for Fagbenro Oluwadamilare Oluwaseyifunmi who would have joined the more than 50 million out-of-school children in the world when he was only 14 years old. He had just completed his basic education and was about starting senior secondary school when his father died. Fortunately, he learnt about Lafarge Africa’s scholarship program for people of his community, Egbado Ajegunle.
“Lafarge has helped me to stay in school,” the 25-year-old accountancy student at Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta, Ogun State said. “The company has even helped me to set up a little business. After paying my school fees and other necessary payments with my scholarship, I still have a little left which I used to do business. And ever since then, I have been making progress.”
The three are only a few of the hundreds who have benefitted from Lafarge’s scholarship program set up especially for students in the communities where Lafarge Africa operates in Nigeria.
Apart from investing in the development of the people, the company is also working hard to develop a thriving economy in its host communities through programs like the Cement Professionals Training Program (CPTP), a program aimed at helping youths with entrepreneurial spirit to achieve their goals in the fields of technology, engineering, cement manufacturing, instrumentation and automation among many others. With the high rate of unemployment in the country and the dearth of social amenities in many rural areas, such social impact efforts by corporate organizations are highly needed in communities.
Lafarge Africa continues to seek ways to ensure that they maintain a cordial and mutually beneficial relationship with their host communities and it is committed to strengthening the existing relationships with communities by creating confidence and building trust. The level of CSR interventions by Lafarge in its host communities which focus on Health and Safety, Environment, Education and Infrastructure is worth emulating by other corporate organizations.”
