DRAFT

18-03-03

Summary of International Cement Industry Structure and Practice

By
Howard Klee, Program Manager, Cement Sustainability Initiative
World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Geneva, Switzerland

Introduction
This summary report provides an assessment of the cement industry outside of China. It is
one of four sector-specific studies assembled as part of the work of the China Task Force on
Business and Sustainable Development. The primary purpose of these materials is to
illustrate current practices and issues of concern, highlighting:
basic industry structure,
technology,
environmental and social impacts,
critical issues for the industry today,
best international practices in dealing with these issues,
policy approaches, and
policy trends.

Much of the information in this summary draws on a recently completed review of the
cement industry by the Battelle Memorial Institute, “Toward a Sustainable Cement
Industry,”1 and subsequent work by 13 global cement companies as part of the “Cement
Sustainability Initiative” at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.2, 3

An overview of the cement industry

Cement-like products were used in Greek and Roman structures over 2000 years ago, but
modern cement was first produced in the early 1800s. The industry has changed
considerably since then, although much of the product remains the same. Key features of
the modern cement industry are:

Products and Markets and Ownership

Cement is the key
constituent of
concrete, the second 2000
millions of metric tonnes

most consumed
material on the planet
1500
(after water). In Africa/Oceania
2000, almost 18 N&S America
billion tonnes of 1000 Europe
concrete (1.6 billion Asia
tonnes of cement) 500
were consumed—
nearly three tonnes
for each person on 0
the planet. Revenue
50

60

70

80

90

99

05

from cement sales

19

19

19

19

19

19

20

was approximately
$97 billion (USD) in
2000. The weighted world price (by tonnage) in 2000 was approximately $52 USD/tonne.

Markets
There exist two very different markets—bulk sales for large infrastructure projects (airports,
roads, buildings, etc.) to governments and companies; and bagged products sold to
individuals for personal use in homes, churches and local structures. Bagged cements
account for an estimated 65% of the world’s production. The worldwide market for cement
has grown an average of about 4.4% annually for the last 70 years. However, the growth
rates, closely tied to the construction cycle, vary significantly in different parts of the world.
In China and Latin America growth rates are high, ranging from 5 to 15% per year. In
Western Europe and the US the growth rate is close to zero. As a consequence of China’s
rapid industrialization in the last 20 years, the Chinese market is approximately one-third of
the world’s total today.

Products
While a number of different kinds of cement can be produced, the most common product is
Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC), named after the white color of stone quarried on the Isle
of Portland in the United Kingdom. In Western Europe, nearly half the cement produced
consists of OPC. Other products such as blended cements (containing other cementitious
materials) constitute most of the rest. In the United States, more than 90% of the cement
produced is OPC. Cement standards developed by a variety of national and international
standard-setting organizations (CEM in Europe, ASTM in the United States, for example)
generally define the acceptable composition and/or properties of different cement products.
Performance-based standards are preferable, but not always available. In most cases the
standards were designed to assure customers that cement which meets particular
specifications will perform as needed.

International Trade
Cement is essentially a local product. With the exception of certain specialty materials,
cement is a fungible, commodity product—cement produced in one location is the same as
cement produced at another. But, because of its weight, cement supply via land
transportation is expensive, and generally limited to an area within about 200-300 km of any
one plant site. Long distance transport via water is becoming more common. It is less
expensive per ton to cross the Atlantic Ocean with a 35,000-ton cargo of cement than to
move a truck full 300 km on land. The United States imported 28 million tonnes of cement
in 2000, nearly 25% of its consumption. Worldwide, slightly more than 100 million tonnes of
cement were moved for international trade by sea, approximately 6% of the total produced.4

Ownership
The cement industry operates in about 150 of the world’s 1925 countries. The industry is
consolidating globally, but the ten largest international firms only account for about one-third
of the worldwide market. (Compare this to the automobile sector where the largest eight
manufacturers produce nearly 90% of the world’s cars.) Thousands of smaller cement firms
remain in the ownership of their founder families. Some national industries are primarily
state-owned, such as China's. Others, such as Egypt’s were nationalized, but now are
moving toward private ownership.

Manufacturing Technology
Making cement consumes a great deal of energy, material and capital. The cement industry
is one of the most capital-intensive industries: the cost of a new cement plant can be
equivalent to about 3 years of revenue. Modern cement plants have capacities well in
excess of 1 million tonnes per year. Once built, facilities may last for 50 years.

2
Cement is made by heating ground limestone with small quantities of other materials (such
as clay and sand) to about 1450 o C in a kiln. The resulting hard substance, called “clinker,”
is then ground with a small amount of gypsum into a powder to make OPC. Other additives
such as fly ash and steel mill slag can be ground and added to the cement to make other
kinds of cement, or as substitutes for some of the lime-based clinker.

Cement Kilns
There are three variations of this process which are largely distinguished by the kiln design
and condition of the limestone feed. Early cement manufacture used vertical shaft kilns,
which as their name implies, feed limestone downwards through a vertical shaft in which hot
combustion gases pass upwards in a counter current direction. Such units are characterized
by relatively low thermal efficiencies and high emissions. They have been replaced in
nearly all Western cement plants with more recent designs. However, this design is still
widely used in India and China where it is estimated that more than 8000 operate in China
alone. The product quality from the vertical shaft kilns is generally lower than that from
rotary kilns.

Horizontal rotary kilns are the dominant design in use today. The limestone and other
materials flow through a long horizontal chamber, counter-current to combustion gas flow.
The axis of the kiln is inclined slightly downward to promote the flow of solids. Residence
time in the kiln is about 6 seconds at temperatures that average 1450 o C. If the limestone is
fed to the kiln as a water-slurry, the process is termed a “wet” process. If the limestone is
fed as a dry ground powder, the process is “dry.” The dry process has significantly greater
thermal efficiency because it eliminates the need to heat and vaporize water. Nearly all new
kilns built today are dry. However, a number of wet process units continue to operate. In
the United States, more than 25% of the existing kilns still use this wet process.6

Fuel
Because of the high temperatures necessary to convert limestone into clinker, cement
making is an energy intensive process. It requires the equivalent of 60 to 130 kilograms of
fuel oil and 110 kWh of electricity to produce one ton of cement. Globally, the cement
industry accounts for about 2% of the world’s primary energy consumption.7 Cement plants
use a wide variety of fuels to supply the necessary heat including coal, petroleum coke,
natural gas, and a variety of other materials. As fuel costs are such a large part of
manufacturing costs, most cement plants have aggressive energy conservation programs.
New kiln designs today (including substantial preheat equipment) require only 60-75% of the
energy used in units designed 10-15 years ago.

The use of some wastes as alternative fuel is a relatively recent but growing practice.
Materials such as discarded tires, waste oil, solvents, spent catalysts, etc. are now used as
fuel in some regions. Because of the high temperature and long residence time (both
greater than those commonly found in industrial incinerators), the combustion is complete.
Use of these materials is not without controversy, however, and varies widely from country
to country. In the United States approximately 10% of cement kiln fuel is derived from
waste. In France, the figure is closer to 50%. In Portugal waste is not used at all, although
it has been discussed for nearly ten years. This issue is discussed in more detail below
under “Critical Issues.”

Plant Size and Location

Like many processes, cement enjoys economies of scale, driving a trend toward larger plant
sizes. Today, a grass-roots plant would provide 2-5 million tonnes of cement annually,

3
depending, of course, on market demand and other commercial factors. The average plant
production across the US, France and Germany is 675,000 tonnes/day. Large plants can
only be constructed with horizontal rotary kilns. Industry growth is in developing economies.
Consequently, plants in the developing world, where the industry continues to expand and
develop new sites, may be larger, cleaner and more efficient than those in the developed
world, which were built 10, 20 or even 30 years earlier.

In China and other countries where there is a lower level of foreign investment in the cement
industry, plant sizes are small. In China in 1999 the average size plant was less than one-
tenth the average European-US size, and less than 1/20th a modern world scale facility.

Employment
The cement industry is a relatively small employer. Modern cement plants are highly
automated; less than 200 people can staff a large plant. Worldwide, the industry employs
about 850,000 people. There is a multiplier effect on direct employment indicating that the
industry provides direct and indirect employment for nearly 1,000,000 people who work in
the supply chain as suppliers, transporters and other roles. Labor productivity has
increased substantially since the 1980s: employment per million tonnes of product (outside
of China) has dropped from 555 in 1980 to 272 in 2000.8 8

Impacts of Cement Production

Emissions, discharges and wastes9
Major emissions from cement manufacturing are traditional airborne pollutants, primarily as
exhaust gases from the kiln and fugitive dust. Pollutants include oxides of sulfur and
nitrogen (SOx and NOx) and particulates from a variety of solids processing and handling
operations. In addition there may be a variety of micro-pollutants from the combustion of
trace materials in fuels or feedstocks. See Table 1, below for typical emissions limits (not
operations) in several regions of the world. In relative terms, the cement industry is a small
contributor to SOx and NOx emissions—less than 2% of the total in the US and UK, for
example. Other major sources include iron & steel mills, refineries, and power plants.
Particulate emissions (dust) are closely associated with cement manufacture. Significant
progress has been made in reducing airborne emissions. As emissions control technology
evolved it has been adapted to cement manufacturing equipment. A new plant today has
emissions that are at least 90% less than those from typical facilities built 30-40 years ago.

Table 1. Representative Emissions limits for Cement Kilns

Emission Item mg per standard cubic meter [mg/Nm3], 10 vol% O2 , except as noted
Region or Country EU USA Australia Brazil China
Dust 0.15
30 kg/Mg dry 100 77 100
feed
NOx 800 (existing plant)
- 940 - -
500 (new plant)
Mercury 0.05 0.12 3 0.04 -
130
HCl 10 200 1.8 kg/h -
ppm(v)
Dioxin like cmpds,
0.1 0.2 0.11 - -
[ng/Nm3]PCDD/F
Source:
Battelle, 2002

4
Water pollution is generally not a significant issue for the industry. Solid wastes, particularly
cement kiln dust (CKD) must be handled carefully. In some circumstances they are recycled
into the kiln as feed. In other circumstances, it has been necessary to adopt specific waste
management practices for proper disposal.

Micro-pollutants (so called because of the extremely small quantities emitted) have been
measured in cement kiln stacks. These include metals (Vanadium from fuel oil is the most
common), dioxins, and poylaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). In the last five years, extensive
measurements have been made at cement facilities in Switzerland, Australia, the United
States, United Kingdom, Germany and Japan. These measurements are both difficult and
expensive, with a relatively wide range of results. In many cases, the substances measured
are below the analytical detection limits with current equipment. Despite the generally low
levels, these materials remain a significant problem for the industry, as discussed in the
section on “Critical Issues,” below.

CO2 Emissions
The cement industry produces 5% of global man-made CO2, a major greenhouse gas
contributing to climate change. CO2 comes both from burning fossil fuel, and from the
calcination (chemical) reactions converting limestone into clinker. Today, approximately one
ton of CO2 is produced for each ton of clinker. As concerns have grown about man’s
contribution to global warming, many countries have adopted limits on CO2 emissions. This
is also discussed in the “Critical Issues” section below.

Land Use
Limestone, the primary raw material for cement, is abundant and widely available.
Quarrying activities associated with limestone are significant in terms of size and impact on
biodiversity and the surrounding communities. In many countries, environmental
assessments (sometimes combined with social assessments) are required before new
quarrying operations can begin. However, the quality of the assessments, and the
enforcement of any provisions for remediation and rehabilitation vary significantly. There
are no universal standards for quarry operation, maintenance, closure, and rehabilitation.

Health and Safety

In places where performance information is available (and it is generally difficult to find), the
cement industry has a relatively weak employee safety record, with higher incident rates and
fatalities than a number of other industries. In the UK and US, accident rates in the cement
industry are three times the average rate for all heavy industry. Preliminary analysis by
members of the Cement Sustainability Initiative indicates that nearly half of all incidents are
transportation related—moving raw materials or finished product.

Critical Industry Issues

The cement industry provides a key product used in developing infrastructure to serve social
needs such as shelter, roadways, water and sanitation services. In addition, it disposes of
unwanted waste materials in an environmentally responsible way. The recent Battelle
research combined with stakeholder dialogues, identified six critical issues for the industry
as it strives to integrate sustainability concerns into its normal business practices. These
are:

5
 1. Climate Protection: Managing the industry’s CO2 emissions to reduce impacts
on climate change, and optimize financial impacts of various CO2 control
schemes.

As noted earlier, cement is a low value product, with a world-wide average price of
$52/tonne in 2000. As the industry produces an equal weight of CO2 and clinker, any costs
associated with CO2 management could have significant impacts on the industry’s financial
performance. Many current CO2 management schemes envision market prices for CO2 of
$5-25/tonne. While prices are at the low end of this range now, they are expected to rise as
society deals more actively with a carbon-constrained world.

2. Responsible use of fuels and raw materials: increasing the use of alternative
fuels, including wastes, and alternative materials can reduce the use of virgin
materials, including limestone and petroleum products, reduce CO2 emissions
and reduce costs.

Alternative materials such as fly ash from power plants, slag from steel mills, and other
pozzolanic materials, can be substituted for limestone in cement. The resulting blended
cement can be equally suitable for many applications to pure OPC, but uses substantially
less limestone and fuel. Yet many cement standards set by national standard-setting
organizations inhibit the more widespread use of blended cements, by specifying cement
composition criteria instead of cement performance criteria.

Burning alternative fuels, such as used tires, provides society with an environmentally
responsible disposal option, compared to landfill or open disposal (dumping). And, unlike
incineration, where no value is recovered, the recovered energy in the cement kiln reduces
the need for other hydrocarbon fuels. Using alternative materials offers similar benefits.
The material recovered (from slag and fly ash for example) is contained in the cement
matrix, and reduces the need for virgin sources of iron. The public is concerned about
emissions from burning these waste materials in other than specially designed incinerators.
Consequently, many cement plants are prevented by local and/or national authority from
burning these materials.

Many NGOs argue that using cement kilns for waste disposal, even if safe, is
counterproductive because it offers a low cost disposal option and thus encourages waste
generation. Following the waste hierarchy, they argue, requires considering reduction,
reuse, and recycling before disposal.

3. Improving employee health and safety: the industry can and must reduce the
number of injuries and fatalities, striving for performance at least as good as the
petroleum and chemical sectors.

4. Reducing emissions: the industry must continue to monitor and reduce

traditional emissions and deal more effectively with the concerns about micro-
pollutants, such as metals, PAHs, and dioxins.

In most developed countries emissions of SOx , NOx and particulates have been reduced
substantially through a combination of improved technology and specific regulatory
standards. This is not true in many developing countries where missing or lax
environmental standards, coupled with poor enforcement mechanisms and limited capital
leaves unacceptably high emission levels. In China, for example, particulate emissions from

6
cement plants accounted for 40% of the country’s estimated 25 million tonnes of particulate
emissions in 1998. In the public’s mind, the industry everywhere continues to be associated
with high levels of dust.

Alternative fuels are successfully used in many countries—France, Germany, the United
States, Japan, and many others. However, emissions from burning alternative fuels have
raised deep concerns for the public in many situations. The industry needs an effective way
of monitoring and reporting emissions that will address plant safety and product quality
concerns. Despite many past measurements, the industry has not yet made a convincing
case that emissions from kilns using alternative fuels are no different than from kilns using
normal fuels. Similarly, concerns about product quality and safety continue to be raised by
those opposed to alternative fuel use.

5. Managing impacts of cement facilities on land use and local communities:

Initial efforts to make and use environmental and social impact assessments
need to be strengthened, including publishing quarry management plans, dealing
with biodiversity protection, and handling plant and quarry closures in
environmentally and socially responsible ways.

6. Communicating more effectively with stakeholders about facility operations,

emissions, and management plans.

The cement industry has a low public profile, and a history of limited engagement with
stakeholders outside the industry. In many cases this reflects the tradition of long-
established businesses, and the family-dominated ownership (at least initially) of many.
During the seven stakeholder dialogues held as part of the WBCSD cement sector study,
many participants remarked that this was their first opportunity to interact with the industry.
They were pleased with what they learned, but wanted opportunities to hear and learn more.

Industry response to Critical Issues

The Cement Sustainability Initiative was begun both to identify these critical issues, and to
formulate appropriate, actionable responses to them. Through case studies, the research
found that many of the problems described above had been addressed successfully, albeit
not universally and not in a systematic way. The research identified “pockets of excellence”
within individual companies, accompanied by pockets of poor performance, sometimes
within the same company.

The Initiative is working to develop consistent and widely applicable guidelines and
protocols for dealing with these issues. As a group, the companies (now 13) engaged in the
Initiative will address guidelines for CO2 management, responsible use of fuels and raw
materials, an emissions monitoring and reporting protocol, and environmental and social
impact assessment. As individual companies (representing more than 1/3 of the world’s
capacity), each company has agreed to implement the protocols and guidelines developed
at their operating facilities.

Of course, companies and groups of companies cannot solve these problems in isolation.
There are clear needs for cooperative efforts by policy makers, labor, professional
associations, and others in devising, testing and communicating effective solutions.

7
Current Best International Practice
Climate Change Management
Today, even leading companies are struggling to understand, keep up with, and ultimately
succeed in managing climate change issues. Information and requirements are rapidly
evolving, as is the participation of others. (See discussion below under Policy Trends.) Key
factors for success will be:
(1) A complete inventory of CO2 (the only significant greenhouse gas for the cement
industry) emissions, on a facility basis and for the corporation.
(2) An understanding of each facility’s individual CO2 cost control curve. How much will it
cost to control the next ton of CO2?.
(3) Development of CO2 trading, offset, and other management strategies. Define the
options and costs for each.
(4) Integrating CO2 costs into corporate financial decision-making using probabilistic
modeling with a range of CO2 prices.

Responsible Use of Fuels and Raw Materials

Alternative fuels and raw materials offer substantial benefits to both industry and society.
They can reduce virgin material use (including energy), quarrying activities, CO2 emissions,
and potential waste disposal problems associated with landfills and incinerators. Many
companies have incorporated some use of AFR into their strategic business planning. Key
best practices are:
(1) A well-defined and carefully communicated policy on use of these materials, including
what will and what will not be used.
(2) Effective systems for emissions monitoring and reporting, including materials of public
concern, even in the absence of regulatory requirements. This may require external
auditing and verification from time to time.
(3) Effective processes for engagement with local stakeholders as a normal business
process.
(4) Well-defined processes and procedures for handling AFR materials, including adequate
health and safety systems to ensure that employees and neighbors are not exposed.

Employee Health and Safety

Techniques for improving health and safety performance are well known, and have been
applied successfully by a number of organizations. Key features of best-in-class
performance include:
(1) Incorporating safety into the working culture of the organization though continuous
reinforcement of safe working practices, use of safety awards, and senior executive
attention.
(2) A systematic program for tracking, reporting, and analyzing all safety related incidents,
including “near-misses.”
(3) Communications systems within the company or group to quickly share all safety related
information so that problems are not repeated multiple times before institutional learning
occurs.
(4) Ongoing analysis of incidents, responses and progress to provide information and focus
on continuous improvement.

8
 Emissions Reduction
Some of the same techniques required for successful use of AFR materials are also
required as part of an effective emissions management system. Key elements are:
(1) A well defined emissions inventory and reporting process, including an understanding of
emission reduction costs
(2) A program for effective engagement with local stakeholders including regulatory
personnel. Public reporting of emissions and emissions reduction progress is an
important part of the engagement program.
(3) A process for defining emission reduction targets that accounts for public concerns, plant
economics and current and pending regulatory requirements.

Local impacts on land and communities

In most developed countries, there are recommended (if not mandatory) programs for
dealing with local impact issues. These are not necessarily well entrenched in developing
country markets, where regulatory programs may be less developed, and/or enforcement
and follow-up lacking. Key elements of best practice include:
(1) Apply environmental and social impact assessment tools to all new projects.
(2) Develop land use management plans for all operating facilities, in consultation with local
communities.
(3) Provide written quarry rehabilitation and share with local communities. Update plans as
needed, reflecting then current technology and community needs.
(4) Develop adequate advance planning for plant closure, and other significant changes with
major community impacts in consultation with community leaders. Communicate
frequently in times of change.

Effective Communications
Many of the best-practice items above included a strong communications component.
Indeed, stakeholders again and again indicated the need for communications as a key
ingredient in retaining a plant’s “license to operate.” Effective communications is necessarily
tailored to the target audience. Different societies deal with issues concerning business,
environment, employment, and social responsibility in different ways and in different
organizations. The items below have been effective in Western (US, Europe, Canada,
Australia) locations. At a local level, good communications must:
(1) Identify what needs to be communicated, and the existing level of local understanding,
biases, and opinions on these issues.
(2) Identify and work with decision maker that affect the local facility.
(3) Understand local circumstances, environment, critical issues.
(4) Engage with the community on a regular, on-going basis, both from a business
perspective and via more personal contacts through individual employee interactions.

Policy approaches
Public policy approaches to the cement industry have followed the traditional lines of
regulating emissions from many large industries: media specific programs dealing
separately with air, water, and waste management. These have included:
• Command and control regulations (technology mandates, emission limits, product
composition regulation, etc.)
Enforcement and fines
Criminal sanctions including prison
Information disclosure (emission reports)
Voluntary programs (CO2 limits and voluntary reductions)
Incentives (fuel or carbon taxes, carbon trading schemes, design contests)

9
There are few instances where policy has been successfully designed or implemented to
deal with cross-media issues and pollution movement crossing regional and national
boundaries. Why? Enabling legislation frequently failed to consider these broader, more
integrated problems. In addition, more flexible approaches, such as setting performance
standards instead of equipment requirements, can be more difficult to monitor and enforce.

In many cases these policy approaches involve specific, complex rules defining emissions
limitations (permits), equipment requirements (technology mandates), measurement
protocols, management standards, and reporting procedures. In many cases these
programs have effectively reduced traditional emissions, although many have argued that
the reductions have come at a higher cost and with greater complexity than necessary.

The United States in particular has developed a highly complex environmental regulatory
system, with both State and Federal regulations and authority. To choose just one simple
example, the Clean Air Act renewal of 1990, reauthorized legislation of the first Clean Air Act
in 1974. The renewal ran to some 300 pages, and instructed the Environmental Protection
Agency to develop specific regulatory programs for its implementation. Some dozen years
later, the Agency is still at work writing the required regulations. It recently issued the
National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) for Paper and Web
Coating Facilities, as part of this process.10

Many other countries have adopted this model. It has the advantage of detailed rules which
attempt to provide clear instructions, public participation in the rule-making process, and
opportunities for judicial appeal. However, to function effectively, this, or any other system,
requires a fully functioning enforcement system, clear legal procedures, and transparent
decision-making processes.

While some baseline level of performance is absolutely necessary (including strong, uniform
enforcement), more successful policy approaches deal with setting overall goals and
performance objectives, while permitting innovation and latitude in how these objectives are
achieved; providing incentives for early action; and recognition for leadership activities.

Policy Trends
Climate Change complexity. Many countries have already adopted climate change
mitigation strategies which will require significant reductions in energy use and greenhouse
gas emissions, despite the uncertain outcome of the Kyoto Protocol. Such programs are
heavily concentrated in Europe at this time. These will have many business impacts. At an
international level, there is not yet a consistent framework for managing climate issues. The
United States has declined to participate in Kyoto, although voluntary programs are being
promoted. Individual US States are developing individual climate mitigation programs
without the benefit of a national framework. Europeans are moving aggressively ahead with
emission limits, trading programs, and industry-by-industry agreements.

Business will have the increasingly difficult challenge of understanding the specific goals
and processes of these evolving, and varying programs. Absent a unifying framework, and
mutual recognition of different trading regimes, climate change programs of increasing
complexity and high transaction costs appear unavoidable.

Industrial Ecology and Sustainable Development. There is increasing interest in promoting

an ecosystem or industrial ecology approach to managing industrial emissions. The most

10
widely quoted example in Kalundborg, Denmark is viewed as a model, even though it
evolved without regulation in response to market-driven material and energy availabilities
and exchanges. To date, however, these efforts have been limited to some demonstration
programs. It is difficult for regulatory agencies to reach across the dividing lines of different
regulatory programs and adopt a systems or ecosystem approach to problem solving.

The cement industry would benefit greatly from a more inclusive, systems approach to
managing the issues of CO2 reductions, alternative fuels/materials, product standards, and
emissions reporting and monitoring. Increased use of other materials will allow less
limestone to be mined and used, provides an environmentally sound disposal option for
wastes which are difficult or ineffectively managed, and is a critical factor in a successful
industry response to CO2 limitations. If these issues are handled on a traditional,
segregated basis there are likely to be contradictory requirements, and significant expense.

Land Use and Landscape Management—managing restricted areas

The value of ecosystems is increasingly recognized, as demonstrated by the well-publicized
lists of endangered places and species, and ecologies. As ecosystems frequently cut
across political boundaries, policy in the international arena has been set by treaty and
convention. The United Nations has adopted a number of conventions related to
environmental management.11 More recently there have been efforts to regulate by
watershed region, rather that by geographic boundaries. Increasingly, access to natural
resources will be made contingent on firm agreements to manage impacts effectively.
Where some developing national governments have difficulty with enforcement, international
NGOs are playing an increasingly effective role in designing programs, and monitoring
implementation.

More public disclosure

Mandating public disclosure has become one of the most successful approaches to
improving environmental quality, since the US EPA first began publishing reports of the
Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) in 1988.12 The European Union has adopted similar
legislation, which comes into effect in 2003. Public disclosure requires little in the way of
regulatory expertise. Yet disclosure almost always leads to public scrutiny, demands for
improvement, and peer group competition between businesses in similar industrial sectors.
The NGO community has begun to adopt publicly reported information into ranking and
community information networks.13 When focused on local issues, this kind of information
can have dramatic impacts on community response to environmental and social matters.

1
See Battelle, “Toward a Sustainable Cement Industry,” commissioned by the World Business
Council for Sustainable Development, Geneva, Switzerland, March 2002.
2
See “The Cement Sustainability Initiative – Our Agenda for Action,” World Business Council for
Sustainable Development, Geneva, Switzerland, July 2002.
3
See also web materials at www.wbcsdcement.org
4
Source: OneStone Intelligence GmBH, Germany, “Cement Project Focus 2005,” a private client
survey, published 2001.
5
As of July 2002.

11
6
See USGS Minerals Yearbook, 2001, Cement, p. 12.
7
International Energy Agency, “The Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from the Cement
Industry,” Report No. PH3/7, May, 1999, Paris.
8
Time series data are not available for China, but Battelle estimated approximately 1000 persons per
million tons of product in 2000

9
AEA Technology, “Environment Health and Safety Performance Improvement in the Cement
Industry,” part of the Cement Sector study of the WBCSD, December, 2002, Geneva.
10
See United States Federal Register, December 4, 2002, pp. 72329-72362
1
1 The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and
their Disposal, the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage,
the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and
the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer are examples.
12
Under the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA). See, for example,
http://www.epa.gov/tri/. Similar pollutant release and transfer registry (PRTR) programs have been or
are being developed for use in the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Mexico, Norway, Canada and
the Czech Republic.
13
See for example, Environmental Defense, Scorecard at www.scorecard.org, which allows private
citizens to access environmental data about specific facilities in their community, communicate with
regulators and with plant management.

12