Some of our key strategic sustainability priorities are led and driven by departments. As an example, our procurement team drives the development of a more sustainable Supply Chain. As for Circular Solutions, our business development teams and business innovation center are overseeing the unfolding of new initiatives.
Lhoist conducts business with thousands of suppliers worldwide. As a company, we must build a supplier network that upholds our standards and values by endorsing human rights and labor standards, health and safety practices, business integrity, and environmental responsibility as core elements for doing business.
Our vision of sustainable procurement is about optimizing the total cost of ownership for purchasing goods and services while integrating ethical, environmental, safety, and social factors in our procurement processes and decisions. We include the relevant sustainability criteria in the supplier (pre-)qualification and selection process, and we objectively evaluate bidders considering them.
An important aspect involves circular procurement, i.e., the consideration of a product or service from inception through to disposal, with visibility as to what happens to it once it reaches its end-of-life stage. Circular procurement focuses on closing energy and material loops within supply chains, with the goal to minimize the use of natural resources and to increase the lifetime of our equipment and materials through better design, regeneration, and restoration.
At Lhoist, we are transforming the way our customers think about unvalorized resources coming from the use of lime. We are willing to support them in recycling and repurposing materials and to move from a linear economy to a circular one.