In January 2019, Dyckerhoff joined the Concrete Sustainability Council (CSC), an independent body established in November 2016 by a number of international companies, associations and institutions in the concrete sector with the aim of sponsoring a new certification system to ‘measure’ the extent to which concrete manufacturing companies operate in a responsible manner.
Developed in conjunction with non-governmental organizations and numerous stakeholders, the certification system measures the sustainable and responsible sourcing of an organization by assessing a score (bronze, silver, gold), which is assigned by a third-party assessment agency based on a set of minimum requirements that must be verified and which take into account the economic and environmental impacts of not just the concrete production facilities but the entire supply chain. The main objective is to demonstrate that concrete and its constituents, including cement, are completely compatible with sustainable development.

The value of CSC certification is already recognized by the most advanced sustainability ratings systems for buildings such as the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB) and the ‘green public procurement’ policies of many governments.

As of April 2018, all the concrete plants in the Netherlands and all the cement plants in Germany, with Lengerich being the first cement plant in the country, had already obtained CSC certification (Silver level). By joining the CSC, our group is going beyond merely applying the certification system – we want to help develop it firsthand and ensure that it increases its value and effectiveness.