Holcim PH sets ₱2-billion investment for green goals

Cement manufacturing firm Holcim Philippines is setting investments worth ₱2 billion for the next three years to introduce more green product lines in the country and ensure sustainable operations in its local plants.

In a press briefing on April 15, Holcim President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Horia Adrian said the company will "invest in decarbonizing our operations by shifting to renewable energy (RE), electric cars, and green fuel."

A billion pesos in investments are in the pipeline to partly enhance Geocycle Philippines, which is Holcim Group's global waste management business and involves the promotion of safe waste management services, particularly for local government units.

"At the side of the collection, it's really creating capacity for the LGU to sort and segregate. There's also the side where if we want to take more volume we need to increase our capacity for shredding and preparing the materials," said Holcim Chief Sustainability Officer Samuel Manlosa, Jr.

These materials pertain to sorted municipal waste such as waste oil and sludges, process sludges, agrichemical wastes, contaminated rags and absorbents, expired medicines, reject packaging materials, off-spec products, manufacturing line rejects, waste rubber, an unrecyclable plastics.

"And then the third part is, to our cement plants, even as sophisticated and as technologically advanced as they are, these are also constructed 20 years ago when norms are different," he said.

"So we have to make changes in the process to make sure that plants are able to accept more because they've been designed for coal. So if you want to prepare them for another type of material, you have to do tweaks in the process so they can do that over the years...ideally by 2026," Manlosa added.

Adrian noted two product lines that the company aims to introduce in the Philippines — Ecocycle and Ecopack. The company is already developing partnerships for Ecopack, which Adrian forecasts can enter the local market in one to two years, since the local plants already have the capacity for that product line. Meanwhile, Ecocycle will be a more long-term investment.

"But we will start using more recycling materials. That's what we will try to do. We want to be the pioneers in this field," he remarked.