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without distinction, whatever the country, wherever in the world.
Another delicate issue it has faced head-on is the carbon gas emissions
from heating limestone kilns with fossil fuels to produce
cement. Here too Lafarge has taken a proactive stance. In 2000,
working in partnership with WWF, it made a worldwide commitment
to reduce emissions by 20% per tonne of cement between
now and 2010 (2) , with Price Waterhouse called in to provide objective
audits. Getting this right is very pertinent to its Lafarge’s activity.
Indeed, a large part of its research budget is devoted to optimizing
combustion processes.
Innovation prize
Every three years or so, Lafarge organizes its “Innovation Awards”
ceremony concurrently with a meeting of 600 top managers. A village
is set up for the occasions with stands for prize-winners to present their
innovations. An award in the “marketing” category went to recently a
transfer of practice. The group’s Indian entity had created a Customer
University to invigorate its service to clients. The Kenyans became
interested, went to see for themselves, and have since transposed the
principle to their own country, with local adaptations. This horizontal
passing of know-how within the group also falls under the heading of
citizenship innovation.
It also proves that, at Lafarge, innovation is not simple a matter of
Awards, but is anchored in employees’ everyday reflexes. •
(1) The invention transformation rate at Lafarge is a remarkably high nearly 90%.
(2) The commitment covers the period 1990-2010. So far, Lafarge has achieved
a reduction of 13%.
Sustainable Development & citizenship
© DR médiathèque Lafarge.
© DR médiathèque Lafarge.
Wind farm at Tetouan (Morocco).
Global and local
Agilia self-placing concrete
being poured on site.
With 2 100 operating sites in
76 countries, Lafarge has annual
sales of EUR 16 billion. This originally
family-owned French company has
gradually expanded geographically and
climbed to the top of its markets by
basing its activity on four naturally linked
pillars: cement, granulates (stone, gravel
and sand) and concrete, plasterboard
and roofing materials. These are not per
se highly innovative products, which
explains why the R&D budget
is of the order of just 1% of turnover.
Even so, research is seen as highly
important in terms of technological
development. Research work is shared
between a global centre (developing new
compounds, providing ideas
and information on possible fields
of development) and local or regional
technical centres which develop
and perfect processes and provide
technical assistance. This structure reflects
the constraints of largely locally based
operations: each quarry is different,
extracted products do not travel far,
and every new development has
to be adapted to individual sites.
Lafarge reconciles global leadership
and local multiplicity by prioritizing
employee motivation. Nearly
50% of eligible employees hold shares
in the company, producing a sense
of involvement and loyalty.
This is accompanied by a clearly affirmed
policy of giving sites the greatest possible
autonomy: a logical approach, given
the high degree of local specificity
in the group’s activities.
J U L Y 2 0 0 6
© DR médiathèque Lafarge.
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