One of the largest global sustainability programs ever undertaken by a single industry sector, the Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI), released its first progress report today, three years after making its Agenda for Action. The CSI report documents the delivery on pledges made in 2002, in particular in CO2 emissions, the use of fuels and raw materials and occupational health and safety. Probably the most significant is the production of an protocol for measuring and reporting CO2 emissions from cement manufacturing, the first time an industry has adopted a voluntary and independently audited emissions protocol.
Dr Mostafa Tolba, President of the International Centre for Environment and Development (ICED) and Former Director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), comments “The CSI represents a serious effort by an important industry sector to tackle complex sustainability issues in a practical, results oriented way. Using a common set of key performance indicators, which address both business and stakeholder concerns, while requiring public reporting of individual company achievements is a major step forward in providing an important level of accountability for a voluntary program.”
The CEOs of the current member companies issued a joint statement at the launch of the Report in Japan on 7th June. “We are proud of this report, in a sense more proud of this than our Agenda for Action, as that was a list of promises. What we are able to do today is report the results of the first steps towards making the cement industry more sustainable, now and into the future.” they said.
