INSEE Cement Sri Lanka is forging ahead with a “green” ambition to fulfill its economic, environmental, and social responsibilities to the people of Sri Lanka and become one of the foremost sustainability advocates in the country by 2030.
In its Sustainability Report 2020/2021 released this week, INSEE Cement has highlighted the significant and tangible progress in the areas of climate and energy, strengthening the circular economy, and protecting biodiversity and water. Additionally, the report includes concrete actions taken to ensure the occupational health and safety of its workforce and galvanize communities and other stakeholders, which are key aspects of INSEE Cement’s 2030 sustainability ambition.
Delivering the keynote address at an event to mark the report’s launch, Secretary to the Ministry of Environment Dr. Anil Jasinghe highlighted the important role of corporates in climate action and appreciated the significant efforts INSEE Cement has accomplished. “The future of this country is in the hands of green development. This does not mean compromising on economic growth,” he said. “Industries must contribute to nationally driven efforts on green development. If not, we run the restrict of losing out our competitiveness in the global market. A very important aspect is ensuring good governance pragmatically and rationally.”
Speaking at the event, INSEE Cement’s CEO Jan Kunigk described how INSEE confronted head-on the challenges of the pandemic period and put in place the necessary health and safety measures to continue sustainability and biodiversity conservation efforts. “Rather than allowing COVID-19 challenges to consume us, we focused on supporting vulnerable communities in areas we operate, while innovating and investing in staying the course in our sustainability ambition,” he said.
INSEE Cement’s CEO also noted the important role of the company’s waste management arm, INSEE Ecocycle in taking others along on the sustainability journey. “Following the expansion of our Ecocycle operation in 2020, we now offer end-to-end solutions to customers, to support the systematic collection of fast-moving consumer goods waste and post-consumer waste and transform it into alternative energy and other valuable resources. So far, we have served over 1000 customers in co-processing and eliminated over 1,000,000 metric tons of industrial waste, which otherwise would have ended up in landfills.”
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is a key partner in INSEE Cement’s sustainability and biodiversity conservation efforts. IUCN Sri Lanka’s Country Representative Dr. Shamen Vidanage highlighted the importance of such partnerships. “We provide technical knowledge, so INSEE Cement can venture on this sustainability and biodiversity conservation journey along the right path. As a result, we have science based initiatives field tested for many years and now emerged as best practices in ecosystem restoration, ecological monitoring and coral reef restoration. The commitment of corporate partners like INSEE Cement is imperative. If we don’t take the right actions towards sustainability and environmental conservation today, we will face far greater challenges in the not-so-distant future.”.”
IUCN Sri Lanka Country Representative Dr. Shamen Vidanage highlighting the positive impact of the INSEE Cement-IUCN partnership in Sri Lanka © INSEESL/2023/T.G.P. Deepal Indika
INSEE’s efforts to reduce CO2 emissions in its product profile have seen the Company go beyond the conventional product innovation strategies to adopt a more holistic approach to reduce the carbon footprint of its products. In 2021, this drive to innovate led to the development of Sri Lanka’s “greenest” cement, INSEE Sanstha Portland Composite Cement.