Holcim SL holds Asia’s first carbon neutral award ceremony:

Negating harmful climate change effects focused

The Carbon Consulting Company helped Geocycle, a subsidiary of Holcim Lanka (Ltd) to hold their recent Geo Responsible Awards, the first ever certified Carbon Neutral awards ceremony to be held in the Asian region.

The Sri Lankan Carbon Consulting Company (CCC), considered factors such as energy consumption, delegation travel, waste disposal, and supplier travel in determining the carbon footprint of the ceremony.

This came to an average value of 24 kg CO2 equivalent per delegate.

CCC as part of its consulting services, assisted Geocycle in reducing or mitigating the footprint of the event.

Geocycle held the event at the climate friendly ‘Mihilaka Madura’ at the BMICH, between 4 pm-6 pm to avoid rush hour traffic and the resulting additional emissions.

Furthermore organizers advised delegates to maximize carpooling travel and set the dress code as smart casual so as to retain the room temperature at the optimum 26 degrees C.

Once Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) associated with this event were established and all possible GHG reduction options considered, Geocycle sourced and purchased the necessary offsets from a Sri Lankan fuel switching project in the central province of Sri Lanka to make this a completely certified carbon neutral event.

This Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) project uses renewable biomass to generate heat for processing tea at nine factories in Sri Lanka.

In addition to negating the harmful climate change effects, this project directly employs 30 additional full-time workers for the growing, harvesting and supplying of fuel wood.

The owner has also developed roads on the estates, which have benefited thousands of permanent residents, namely employees, families, and non-workers alike, adding to the social and environmental sustainability of this effort with direct benefits to Sri Lanka. CCC calculations were validated by a third party verifier Ecometrica, and thereafter offered Carbon Neutral certification from the CarbonNeutral Company UK, one of Europe’s leading providers of carbon reduction solutions.

CCC was established in 2010 with the primary aim of helping companies in Sri Lanka to develop climate change strategies.

Subramaniam Eassuwaren, a director of CCC said, “Making the event Carbon Neutral is an expression of Holcim’s commitment to environmental responsibility.

We are very proud to be associated with the groundbreaking Geocycle award.

By recognising and rewarding environmentally committed companies in Sri Lanka, they are helping the whole country.”

CCC are now working with some of the most environmentally committed companies in Sri Lanka and the UK including Marks and Spencers, MAS Holdings, HNB and Aitken Spence.