Cement sector urged to act now on climate change at GCCA Conference

Speaking at The Global Cement and Concrete Association’s (GCCA) third annual conference - Towards Building the Sustainable World of Tomorrow, Dr Pratima Rangarajan, CEO of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) Climate Investments, urged the cement sector to act now on climate change and to work together to turn risks into opportunities. 

As the keynote speaker, Dr Rangarajan gave her views on how the cement industry could learn from the oil and gas sector on tackling climate change and reducing emissions. She explained that OGCI Climate Investments represents about 30 per cent of the world's gas and oil industry's capacity. The organisaton brought the CEOs together to give leadership to tackling stakeholder and public concerns three years ago. She admitted that when the process to take action on climate change began, "there was denial, and finger-pointing but now there is a large enough group of people that want to take action," said Dr Rangarajan. "Now we have to move fast as there is less time to act every year."

The oil and gas sector found that all companies had decisions to make whether to hide behind their policies or stand up and take the lead in these matters. It became clear that companies had to assess the risks and find the resulting opportunities, while collaborating with others to find solutions.

Dr Rangarajan also stressed that the cement industry will need to set milestones on its way to achieving its CO₂ reception targets. Without the milestones, the progress is hard to measure and by hitting set goals along the way investors can see that progress is being made.

Dr Rangarajan was preceded by Albert Manifold, CRH's CEO and GCCA president, who cited the GCCA's ambition to build on its work with the Climate Ambition Roadmap in 2021 and by Dinah McLeod, GCCA’s CEO, who added that the association would look to expand its membership to cover 50 per cent of the world's cement production capacity next year. 

GCCA's online meeting also held a plenary session with Jan Jenisch, LafargeHolcim CEO, Mahendra Singhi, MD and CEO of Dalmia Cement (Bharat) Ltd and Daniel Balthasar, senior portfolio manager and head of Basic Industries and Utilities. ICR will have a special news report on this discussion in its weekly newsletter on Friday. The GCCA's online conference continues today.