Siam City Cement Group (SCCC Group) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) extended their partnership for another three years by formalizing a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) recently to support the implementation of the INSEE Sustainability Ambition 2030 targeting Net Positive Impact (NPI) on biodiversity at sites where SCCC Group operates.
The goal of the partnership is to avoid and minimize biodiversity loss to the maximum extent possible. Over the next three years, SCCC Group and IUCN will cooperate to design and implement biodiversity offsets to compensate for any unavoidable impacts of SCCC Group’s quarrying and cement production processes in its plants in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Cambodia, thereby contributing to sector-wide improvements in the cement and related industries in the region.
The MoU was formalized
by Mr. Aidan Lynam, Group CEO of SCCC Group and Mr.
Dindo Campilan, PhD,
Regional Director for IUCN Asia and Hub Director for Oceania at the SCCC
Group Headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand, with country representatives from Sri
Lanka, Cambodia and Vietnam joining online.
Mr. Aidan Lynam said “Biodiversity has been established as one of the key pillars in INSEE’s Sustainability Ambition 2030, a long-term strategy in which we are committed to actionable targets which are aligned with the business needs. IUCN can therefore play an integral part in challenging and supporting our plans for the achievement of mutually shared objectives.”
During the period of the first MoU (2018-2021), SCCC Group worked with IUCN to reduce biodiversity loss and rehabilitate impacts from its operations. For example, in Sri Lanka, Siam City Cement (Lanka) partnered with IUCN and monitored wildlife to assess the impact of quarry rehabilitation in Aruwakkalu. Sought technical assistance from IUCN coral experts for the coral reef re-propagation project off the coast of Unawatuna, and was selected as a private sector partner to collaborate with IUCN in a reforestation project within the Kanneliya Forest Reserve. In Thailand, Siam City Cement Plc. works with the Bio-Diversity Network Alliance (B-DNA), the country’s first national business and biodiversity platform, coordinated by IUCN, to build business awareness and capacity for sustainability, and to network and collaborate on biodiversity conservation. Vietnam and Cambodia plants too, have carried out similar high impact projects.
“This continued partnership and the integration of biodiversity conservation into the Group Company’s sustainability ambition clearly demonstrates SCCC Group’s true commitment to biodiversity. Together, we can establish the standards and guidelines that offer solutions balancing the needs of society, business and nature.” said Dr. Dindo Campilan.