"BUILDING BETTER CITIES" AN AMBITION DRIVING OUR INNOVATION
Contributing to “building better cities” is the ambition of Lafarge. It is driving our innovation, and is now embedded in a modernized logo.
By 2050, close to 70% of the world’s population, estimated at 9 billion people, will be living in towns and cities, compared to just over 50% today*. Urbanization on such a scale will be a challenge and an opportunity for the entire construction industry, and especially for Lafarge, present throughout the world, but most particularly in emerging countries, where the Group is strongly established.
Lafarge, a major player with its Cement, Aggregates and Concrete businesses, has placed Innovation and Performance, at the heart of its strategy. Its ambition is to contribute to building better cities by developing value-added products, and construction systems, as well as solutions and services to meet some of the great challenges of urbanization.
Addressing five main challenges, Lafarge’s ambition to contribute to building better cities, includes solutions contributing to…
- more housing in cities, to address the issue of housing for all, including affordable housing;
- more compact cities, with the construction of vertical buildings which help reduce urban sprawl;
- more durable cities, with long-lasting constructions and by taking full account of environmental concerns, including energy efficiency of buildings and water preservation;
- more beautiful, enabling architectural creativity and performance;
- and more connected cities, with a special offer for roads, airports, stations, bridges, tunnels and all infrastructures in general.
This ambition to contribute to building better cities will be supported by Innovation, which targets an additional Ebitda of 450 million euros in our 2012-2015 plan. This will be achieved thanks to our new offers, new services, new market approach and through our commercial excellence objective.
* World Urbanization Prospects, 2011 United Nations Report
NOTES TO EDITORS CONTACTS PRESS RELATIONS
A world leader in building materials, Lafarge employs 65,000 people in 64 countries, and posted sales of €15.8 billion in 2012. As a top-ranking player in its Cement, Aggregates and Concrete businesses, it contributes to the construction of cities around the world, through its innovative solutions providing them with more housing and making them more compact, more durable, more beautiful, and better connected.With the world’s leading building materials research facility, Lafarge places innovation at the heart of its priorities in order to contribute to more sustainable construction and to better serve architectural creativity.
Since 2010, the Lafarge Group has been part of the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, the first global sustainability benchmark in recognition of its sustainable development actions.
