ACC Limited, has become the first Indian cement company to publish an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) for all of its blended cement products manufactured across all of its 17 cement plants. Beginning June 07, 2018, leading ACC cement brands namely ACC Suraksha Power, ACC Concrete+ Xtra Strong, ACC Gold Water Shield, ACC HPC Long Life and ACC F2R Superfast will feature the EPD declaration.
Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is an independently verified and registered document that communicates transparent and comparable information about the life-cycle environmental impact of products. Certified by the Indian regional hub of “The International EPD System”, the EPD has a five-year validity. This EPD is generated in line with ISO 14025:2006 and EN 15804 standards and is based upon Product Category Rules (PCR) EN 16908:2017 (sub-PCR Cement and Building Lime).
For this purpose, a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study was carried out by Thinkstep Sustainability Solutions Pvt Limited using GaBi Software and Thinkstep Professional databases covering all the plants and various brands.
The EPD was unveiled by Rajiv Kumar Bimalchand, head marketing, ACC Limited and Dr Rajesh Kumar Singh, MD, Thinkstep Sustainability Solutions, a 100% subsidiary of Thinkstep AG Germany.
Speaking about the pioneering effort, Neeraj Akhoury, MD & CEO, ACC Limited, said, “At ACC, sustainability is at the heart of everything we do, and is aligned to our corporate objectives. Committed to environmental protection, the company has continuously introduced many ‘industry first’ benchmarks to make our business more planet-friendly through the value chain from mining to sales. We are delighted to announce EPD for all our blended cement products, another milestone for the industry.”
Jan Poulsen, CEO, Thinkstep, said, “The LafargeHolcim group is a frontrunner on environmental commitments, targets and declarations and ACC Limited, being a member of the LafargeHolcim group, has taken a stride to become the first cement company in India to publish EPD for its blended cement products.”
ACC has constantly promoted and encouraged sustainable construction projects in the country. Over the years, the company has pioneered many initiatives which are today established best practices in the industry. In 1966, long before pollution control laws came into existence, ACC had installed sophisticated pollution control equipment which is now a norm across cement plants. ACC’s plants, mines and townships demonstrate many such successful endeavours in quarry rehabilitation, water management techniques and ‘greening’ activities, strongly advocating the use of alternative fuels, making it amongst the companies with lowest carbon footprints in its class.