Lafarge BFC Serbia to invest in eco-friendly cement plant

Lafarge BFC (Serbia), part of the Holcim Group, plans to open an eco-friendly cement plant in Obrenovac. The EUR110m (US$120.3m) plant will produce cement from the ashes of nearby thermal power plants.

The Obrenovac project is part of Lafarge BFC Serbia's pledge to achieve zero CO₂ emissions by 2050. It will help to address Serbia's waste management issues, including the country’s extensive network of unsanitary landfills and illegal dumpsites. In 2019 the European Environmental Agency published a report finding that Serbia has around 100 unsanitary municipal landfills and over 3000 illegal dumpsites. In 2022 Balkan Green Energy News confirmed these figures, adding that some 2.4Mta of municipal waste ends up in unsanitary landfills, contributing to environmental pollution. 

Milos Vucevic, the Serbian prime minister, met with Holcim and Lafarge BFC Serbia executives to discuss this new project. The government noted that the Obrenovac factory will become a regional hub for producing construction materials from ash. This investment in the Obrenovac plant marks the first phase of Lafarge’s expansion in Serbia, with Lafarge BFC Serbia Executive, Dimitrije Knjeginjic, hopeful it will solve the environmental problem of ash landfills.