Additional Information
Biography
Valentine Berghmans, Chief Sustainability Officer, LHOIST GROUP. Lhoist is a global leader in lime, dolime and minerals. With headquarter in Belgium since 1889, this family owned business spans 6 generations. We are present in more than 25 countries around the globe, employ 6,800 people with a turnover of € 3.4 bn. The Lhoist Group offers a wide range of mineral, calcic lime, and dolomitic lime-based products. Our large variety of reagents, as well as many years of expertise are indispensable for a broad type of sectors such as: the steel industry, refractories, the environment, construction and civil engineering, agriculture, glass and chemistry.
For the past 2 years, I have been defining the sustainability journey of Lhoist, interacting with all employees to raise awareness and involving 120 colleagues to plan the transformational path that has led us to a very ambitious yet realistic sustainability roadmap for 2030. This plan involves 7 priorities at group level for which KPI’s are being set: CO2 reduction; D, E&I; circular economy; communities; safety; renewable energy; and health & well-being. Another great achievement was to convince our leadership to include our sustainability KPI’s in employee’s bonuses. Today, they account for 20% of all our employees’ variable compensation.
Further to those ambitious objectives, I participated in 3 of our decarbonization projects that have been selected by the EU’s innovation fund: CO2ncrEAT, CALCC and Everest.
Together, these projects will capture 2.5 million tons of CO2 per year and allow us to supply our customers with a low carbon lime (LEVEL|GREEN®). We are currently offering an intermediate LEVEL|BLUE® lime with a reduced carbon footprint. We were also the 1st company to sign a decarbonization roadmap with the French government for 4 of our French sites; we have joined the peak district project in the UK and are currently defining our CO2 roadmap for the USA.
