Concrete change

When 10 of the world’s leading cement companies embrace a sustainable development agenda, what difference does it make? RMC’s Noel Morrin examines the implications.

How many companies does it take to change the cement industry? The answer could be the same as in the old joke about the number of psychiatrists it takes to change a light bulb - just one, but first it must really want to change. Or it might be 10. That’s how many leading companies got together this summer to publish their Agenda for Action on Sustainable Development.

The Agenda is their formal response to the Battelle Memorial Institute’s independent report, Towards a Sustainable Cement Industry (GF 32, p43). Drawn up under the guidance of the Geneva-based World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), it contains a programme of practical actions for the next five years, with a 20-year time horizon for their impact.

The Agenda encourages work on six priority issues:

  • climate protection
  • fuels and raw materials
  • employee health and safety
  • emissions reduction
  • local impacts
  • incorporating sustainable development principles into business management systems.

Work has already started on putting aspects of this plan into effect. A protocol has been developed for monitoring and reporting carbon dioxide emissions. All 10 companies will be using this by 2006 to publish performance data and targets. A Health and Safety Task Force is likewise developing common reporting practices and ways of sharing best practice.

In the pipeline are projects to initiate dialogue with relevant stakeholders to agree guidelines for the use of all fuels and raw materials in cement kilns, particularly industrial and municipal waste - so tackling the thorny issue of incineration. All 10 companies will use the guidelines across their operations, once they are agreed and validated.

Existing and prospective members of the Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI) are required to demonstrate a commitment to the principles of sustainable development, and by joining the programme, a company is committing publicly to supporting the joint projects in the Agenda for Action, and implementing the individual actions. Although participation in the joint projects is voluntary, any company that doesn’t deliver is thus putting its own credibility and reputation at serious risk.

All too many change initiatives, introduced into companies with high expectations and top management support, just wither away in the face of organisational resistance. So how can the leaders of the CSI’s 10 companies bring about real and lasting change - and integrate sustainable development principles into every stage of their business processes?

The answer is by making the adoption of the principles of sustainable development genuinely matter to every single employee, from shopfloor to boardroom. And the key to achieving this is the ‘alignment process’.

As developed by the CSI, alignment focuses on achieving behavioural changes throughout an organisation. It does this by squaring up the motivation and priorities of individual employees, with the overall aim of becoming a sustainable cement company. It requires each individual in the company to move through several stages of readiness - passing from awareness of sustainable development to an understanding of its importance, to personal commitment - before taking action. In turn, actions must be reinforced by mechanisms to maintain the momentum gained.

The biggest gap comes between commitment and action. This is where company leaders need to focus. Incentives and metrics demonstrating the business case for action will come both from within the companies, and from outside.

The implementation of the CO2 Inventory Protocol across RMC’s cement operations worldwide is a good example of moving from awareness to implementation. And while it is too early to talk about an independent body to judge the progress made by the 10 companies during the next five years and beyond, the fact that they would positively welcome such independent scrutiny surely says much about confidence in their ability to deliver the goods.

Noel Morrin is international environment director for RMC Group plc.

23 September 2002

Noel Morrin