A controversial £7 million deal between the leading environmental group, WWF, and the global cement giant, Lafarge, has failed to prevent a massive increase in climate-wrecking pollution.
A report to be published this week will reveal that Lafarge's worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide have leapt by over 19%. A big increase in cement production in China saw the company's total emissions jump from 79.2 to 94.4 million tonnes between 1990 and 2006.
WWF International has been involved in a partnership with Lafarge since 2000, the main aim of which was to cut carbon emissions. As part of the deal, the company has paid WWF £1m a year in support of environmental projects.
Though both WWF and Lafarge deny their deal amounts to a "greenwash", it has prompted criticism from other groups. Duncan McLaren, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, pointed out that Holcim, another cement multinational, had done better at cutting pollution with no help from WWF.
"WWF can probably learn some lessons from this on how it initiates and manages such partnerships in the future to ensure that it sets the right objectives and delivers on them," said McLaren.
"This illustrates the problem that rising emissions in China are not just a result of Chinese consumption. They are partly due to the involvement of Western companies and we have to recognise that we bear a share of the responsibility."
The report on the WWF/Lafarge deal is due to be published in the Environmental Data Services (ENDS) journal on Wednesday. It points out that WWF UK works with 14 other companies, including the HSBC banking group, Vodafone and Marks & Spencer.
The sharp increase in Lafarge's total carbon dioxide emissions has been caused by a major expansion into China, where it has been buying up cement works. The company predicts global demand for cement will increase 80% by 2020, mostly in the developing world.
Lafarge also runs the Blue Circle cement works south of Dunbar in East Lothian, which has been fingered in the past as a major polluter by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa). Lafarge's relationship with WWF previously came under fire because of the company's support for a hotly disputed superquarry on the Hebridean island of Harris, which was abandoned in 2004.
Lafarge does not deny that its total emissions have increased, but insists it has kept its promises to WWF. "Lafarge bought 17 plants in China at the end of 2005," said a company spokeswoman.
"These are old plants using old technology and the group is working to bring them in line with Lafarge standards. However, this process obviously takes time and, in the meantime, these plants deteriorate our overall performance in terms of carbon dioxide emissions."
The spokeswoman pointed out that Lafarge's business in developing countries had grown from 10% of cement volumes in 1990 to 70% today. "The overall increase in our emissions can be explained by our operations in developing countries," she added.
She argued, however, that the increase should not be allowed to overshadow Lafarge's other achievements. Total emissions from plants in industrialised countries had been cut 6.6% since 1990, putting the company on target to hit the 10% cut it promised by 2010.
The company had also reduced net carbon dioxide emissions per tonne of cement by 14.2% in 2006 and was on track to reach 20% by 2010. Its rival Holcim, which does not have an agreement with WWF, said it had managed a cut of 14.7% a year earlier in 2005.
WWF International did not respond to questions from the Sunday Herald late on Friday. But its head of climate change, Oliver Rapf, told ENDS that Lafarge had not bought the environmental group's endorsement.
He said that WWF wanted Lafarge to set a "challenging target" to increase the proportion of renewable biomass burnt in its cement works. The company was planning a new strategy in the autumn to turn around its increasing emissions.
According to Rapf, Lafarge had been the first cement company to set targets. "We convinced Lafarge to accept targets and the others followed. We constantly challenge the company to keep making progress and showing leadership."
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