Italcementi signed the “Manifesto for Energy Efficiency in Buildings” released by WBCSD ( the World Business Council for Sustainable Development) in December 2009 and formally committed  to reducing energy use in commercial buildings at Group level.

In 2009 Italcementi has successfully conducted an energy optimization audit at its Italy-based headquarters, which have been using REC-certified energy since 2008, and improvement actions will soon be implemented. Energy assessments will also be extended to all subsidiaries’ offices as part of the Group’s further commitment to curbing energy consumption in all the 22 countries in which it operates.

To date, fifty among the largest companies worldwide have joined the WBCSD initiative. Apart from reinforcing good energy management behaviours, the initiative can yield positive returns in terms of operating costs and, most importantly, of lesser environmental impact and fewer CO2 emissions.

Commercial buildings, in fact, account for approximately 40% of the global energy consumption, exceeding even the transport and industrial sectors.

“By signing the WBCSD’s Manifesto, our Group restates its commitments toward sustainable development, “stated Carlo Pesenti, Italcementi CEO. “The Environmental Protection Pact we signed with the Italian Government in July 2009 is actually aimed at improving the environmental efficiency of production processes in combination with more streamlined authorisation procedures. Furthermore, we are working with the Cement Sustainability Initiative to define sectoral standards for emission management and from now on, as a result of this new commitment made to WBCSD, we will focus also on commercial buildings to minimize our ecological footprint.”

Italcementi’s sticking to the Manifesto implies a two-fold commitment for the company: defining an action plan to reduce energy consumption in its office buildings on the one hand and, on the other, promoting products for sustainable building in general and for energy streamlining in particular.
In this respect, Italcementi’s research team - already strongly committed to these issues, has developed a new material, the so-called “thermal cement”, featuring very low thermal conductivity to ensure, along with economic savings, a major reduction in CO2 emissions as a result of lower energy use.