Dalmia Cement Group CEO, Mahendra Singhi, had recently stated that the company is focusing to be carbon negative by 2040. The group is reportedly expanding its low-carbon product portfolio and boosting the utilization of green power, green fuels and green raw materials across its 14 cement plants in India, to turn transition risks into opportunities.
Singhi was in California for the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS), which is aimed at encouraging and supporting investors to boost actions that are required for tacking climate change. The three-day summit concluded on Friday and was attended by over 4,000 delegates from around the globe.
Mahendra Singhi had been connected with Cement Sustainability Initiative for a term of 15 years and was a former CSI Co-Chair in India. He was quoted saying that the member companies were the first in the world to exhibit a sectoral attitude on climate action by establishing a Low Carbon Technology Roadmap in 2009.
Apparently, production of one ton of cement releases about 900 kg of carbon dioxide, meanwhile CSI member companies have been capable of reducing this to 616 kg per ton of cement and companies that are a member of the Indian CSI had further suppressed it down to 578 kg per ton in 2016. Singhi informed that the Dalmia group had reduced carbon dioxide emissions to 526 kg per ton of cement on an average and further to 342 kg per ton for its eastern operations.
According to industry reports, the third-largest consumer of industrial energy in the world is the cement sector, accountable for seven percent of industrial energy use, and the also second largest industrial carbon dioxide emitter, responsible for about seven percent of global emissions.
Singhi mentioned that the company has accomplished about 20 percent depletion in carbon intensity in five years, avoiding over 17.6 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions from its operations. Simultaneously, the company’s profitability has also soared which validates their ideology that clean and green is profitable and sustainable.