Forbes Africa has ranked Lafarge Africa the fourth-best Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sustainability Company in Nigeria for the year 2019.
The Forbes Africa Award is culmination of impact assessments of over 910 organisations operating in Nigeria over the past 13 years.
According to Forbes Africa, selection criteria include company’s participation and recognition in national and international investments in CSR and sustainability projects for the period under review.
The assessment also focused on the work of the organisation in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the number of stakeholders impacted by the programmes.
Commenting on the feat, Communications, Public Affairs and Sustainable Development Director for Lafarge Africa, Folashade Ambrose-Medebem stated that the recognition would encourage the firm to give more of its best.
“Lafarge has become a global leader in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Sustainability and we are happy that our impacts are being recognised. Our CSR and Sustainability programmes constitute major part of our business. Our empowerment programmes cut across four cardinal areas of social intervention which include education, health, infrastructure development and other forms of support. “One of our flagship CSR programmes is the National Literacy Competition, presently in its sixth edition. We introduced the competition in 2014 to engage public primary school pupils across the country who display and improve their literacy skills by competing in literacy-related activities. Since inception, the competition has impacted more than 700,000 pupils in 1,665 schools across 544 local government areas.”
Giving more details on its CSR engagements, Medebem stated that the company recently empowered indigenes of its host communities in Ogun, Cross Rivers and Gombe states.
She said that the effort alone has created socio-economic opportunities that have raised over 100 micro-entrepreneurs through various skill acquisition and empowerment interventions.
“To enhance more collaboration and public services across the communities, we have contributed 4,200 business hours through our ‘Friends and the community’ employee volunteering initiative with over 380 strong volunteers.”
On its sustainability programmes, Medebem said: “We emphasise four critical areas which are climate and energy, circular economy, environment and the community. For instance, our 2018 reports showed that our net CO2 emissions per tonne of cementitious material decreased to 542Kg CO2 per tonne that was a 5.7% reduction from 2017. On circular economy, we utilised 120,526 of waste-derived resources. Our freshwater withdrawal per ton of product was 248 litres per ton for cement and 189 L/M3 for ready mix. Across different communities, our social investment projects and initiatives directly impacted over 500,000 beneficiaries within and beyond our host communities. With these achievements, we are gradually achieving our goal which is to build for growth.”
