Skip to main content

HeidelbergCement signs co-operation agreement with BirdLife International

World Cement,


HeidelbergCement and the internationally recognised nature conservation organisation BirdLife International have signed a co-operation agreement. The primary goal of this partnership is to further improve the protection of biodiversity at quarrying sites.

HeidelbergCement expects that this collaboration will further strengthen its role in the promotion of biodiversity at quarrying sites. As early as 2009, the Group was the first company in the international building materials industry to issue a binding guideline on biodiversity management.

"We are pleased that, in BirdLife International, we have been able to attract a highly competent partner for the further development of our biodiversity management”, said

Dr. Bernd Scheifele, Chairman of the Managing Board of HeidelbergCement AG, who personally signed the co-operation agreement. “Together, we will analyse and optimise our existing work and define new activities in order to promote the preservation of biodiversity at our quarrying sites even more effectively.”

“This open and cooperative collaboration should also send a message to our stakeholders. We will give BirdLife insight into the workings of our quarries and sand and gravel pits throughout the Group and implement biodiversity management projects at these sites together. These projects should make our impact on flora and fauna transparent, assess the effects, and deliver improved approaches that will allow us to give back to nature more than we have taken.”

Dr. Marco Lambertini, Chief Executive of BirdLife International, said: “We are delighted to enter in this relationship with HeidelbergCement, a pioneer in integrating environmental sustainability in the activity of extracting resources, and we feel confident that together we can not only reduce the impact but actually obtain an overall positive net benefit for biodiversity at HeidelbergCement quarries all over Europe.”

“Through the unique BirdLife structure of national and membership based nature conservation organisations across the whole of Europe, we will be able to support action at site level while maintaining an overall strategic oversight. I am confident that the outcomes of this collaboration with HeidelbergCement will prove to make a real difference in fulfilling the potential many quarries hold for biodiversity.”

The co-operation is initially scheduled to last three years. In the first year, a biodiversity strategy for the partnership will be developed jointly. The strategy will also include goals for the protection of species and habitats. In the second year, joint biodiversity projects will be formulated in different countries. Local management, in particular, will be involved, alongside the national partners of BirdLife International. From the third year, the first pilot projects in Europe will then be implemented and documented.

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcement.com/europe-cis/20092011/heidelbergcement_signs_co-operation_agreement_with_birdlife_international/

You might also like

 
 

Embed article link: (copy the HTML code below):