The Italcementi Group views its Research and Innovation as a strategic commitment to guarantee growth and global competitiveness and contribute to a better quality of life for the community in general. In 2005, the Group formed an "Innovation Division", to recommend and approve projects for new products and applications.
Consistently with the other core elements of its mission Sustainable Development and the Safety Policy the Group aims to anticipate market trends and requirements through an approach that makes real attention to environmental issues and optimization of resources its priority.
In response to the market, the Group launched an "Innovation Project" to develop high-performance products that can be effectively adapted to specific user needs. The project aims to guide industrialization in the building sector, using a partnership approach between the Italcementi Group and its customers to market the exclusive innovative products resulting from this integration.
The first tangible results of the project have been, in 2006, the production and marketing on an industrial scale of photocatalytic cements using the innovative TX Active® principle, an important active solution that reduces organic and inorganic atmospheric pollutants. Italcementi will make the substance available for the entire building materials industry, to favor high-quality products of proven efficiency in fighting smog.
The results of the ambitious "Innovation Project" will be assessed over the next few years through continuous monitoring of the growth of the "innovation rate", that is, the ratio of revenues from innovative products to total revenues.