Nature
Recognizing our industry’s heavy reliance on natural resources, Holcim is contributing to building a nature-positive future.
Our Nature Strategy focuses on restoring and preserving biodiversity and freshwater ecosystems while bringing more nature into cities.
“Holcim is among the 1% of the 500 largest global companies with a science-driven approach to biodiversity and the first in our industry with a freshwater replenishment commitment. Our nature strategy sets out measurable water and biodiversity 2030 targets, demonstrating our strong commitment to a nature-positive future.”
We support an active role for businesses in enhancing Nature. Partnerships with biodiversity experts are crucial to optimize our impact. We advocate collaboration that accelerates action.
As an example, Holcim’s Chief Executive Officer and Chairman Jan Jenisch signed the Call to Action of Business for Nature, which brings together influential organizations and forward-thinking businesses seeking to reverse nature loss. We aim to positively influence policymakers who are discussing international agreements on nature and climate change. We are a member of the Business for Nature’s Strategic Advisory Group, supporting them to set directions and prioritize actions.
We are excited to be contributing to the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD)’s efforts to develop a framework that can guide business operations to deliver a nature-positive future. This will complement our ongoing work with the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) which we have been an official supporter of since 2017.
We are a signatory of the CEO Water Mandate and the WASH pledge strengthening our water stewardship commitments. We also joined the 50L Home Coalition and the Water Resilience Coalition to scale up its impact in protecting the world’s freshwater resources.
We believe businesses have an active role to play in providing solutions for nature. Nevertheless, public policies are key to accelerate actions in this decade to reverse nature loss.
For biodiversity, we support the establishment of mandatory rehabilitation requirements in all countries. Those requirements should encourage ecosystem restoration including: high-diversity fauna and flora, restoration based on endemic species, continuity with neighboring natural landscapes and spaces, and progressive rehabilitation, i.e. rehabilitation taking place simultaneously with extraction work. Incentives can facilitate the protection of endangered species, particularly in biodiversity sensitive areas.
For a greater impact on freshwater reduction, government mandates and incentives are necessary to promote investment in technologies for rain harvesting, optimization of water use in processes, and affordable low-carbon energy desalination.
CONTRIBUTING TO UN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
We work to have a positive impact on all 17 UN SDGs. Under our nature pillar we have identified four goals where we can make a significant difference:
