CRH is committed to the highest standards of environmental management in all of our activities and to proactively addressing the challenges and opportunities of climate change.
Environmental policy:
Our environmental policy, applied across all Group companies, is to:
- Comply, at a minimum, with all applicable environmental legislation and continually improve our environmental stewardship towards industry best practice
- Ensure that our employees and contractors respect their environmental responsibilities
- Proactively address the challenges and opportunities of climate change
- Optimise our use of energy and resources through efficiency gains and recycling
- Promote environmentally-driven product and process innovation and new business opportunities
- Be good neighbours in the many communities in which we operate.
Environmental management
Achieving our environmental policy objectives at all our locations is a management imperative; this responsibility continues throughout the organisation up to Divisional Director and Group Chief Executive at CRH Board level. Our environmental management systems are well established and are regularly reviewed taking into account industry best practice. Knowledge-sharing around the Group also plays an important part in this process.
Environmental performance
CRH is committed to investing in a wide range of environmental improvements across all of our activities and countries of operation. Plant upgrades typically include process yield optimisation, increased recycling, waste reduction, energy efficiency and emission reduction. This sustained investment program steadily moves us towards best industry practice in all those areas.
Because of the variety of our businesses, most environmental targets are set at operating company level. In all cases, our aim is to optimise our environmental performance.
Environmentally-driven product innovation
In tandem with our commitment to act as a socially responsible corporate citizen, we view the development of new products that specifically benefit the environment, together with the enhancement of existing products to improve their eco-efficiency, as a significant business opportunity. Significant environmental and commercial benefits are also gained through recycling, waste reduction, resource management as well as the use of alternative raw materials and alternative fuels.
Climate change
We acknowledge the challenges that climate change presents to humanity and to our businesses and we are committed to playing our part in developing pragmatic solutions. We are a core member of the Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI) of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), and we actively support its pioneering work in developing and promoting industry solutions.
We have made a commitment to achieve a 15% reduction in the specific CO2 emissions from the portfolio of cement plants under operational control in 2007 by 2015 (base year 1990). We continue to invest to ensure we will deliver on this commitment.
In all our activities, increasing energy efficiency and reducing CO2 emissions remains a major focus. We see climate change and high energy costs as twin innovative driving forces of the future and we recognise that the challenges of today can quickly become the opportunities of tomorrow.
Read more in our Sustainability and CSR Report