Double eco-award success for Lafarge
Company’s Extensia flooring concrete picks up Green Apple award and earns Green Hero status
LAFARGE Readymix has received an additional honour from eco-champions The Green Organisation for their flooring concrete, Extensia. As well as gaining a Green Apple award, the environmentally friendly, low-shrink product has earned Green Hero status.
Lafarge and Extensia will also be featured in The Green Book – the world’s only work of reference on environmental best practice – which is distributed globally with the intention of inspiring future ecologically sound innovation.
Lafarge’s recognition for Extensia, under the project title Bringing New Dimensions to Concrete, came in the Environmental Best Practice section of The Green Apple Awards.
The judges said: ‘Extensia uses significantly less energy and materials in its production and has better environmental performance and recyclability throughout its life.’
Extensia took two years to develop following feedback from customers looking for a concrete with better sustainable credentials. Unlike conventional concrete, it features low-shrinkage properties which reduce cracking, decrease drying deformities and minimize porosity.
This breakthrough formulation means the use of Extensia can reduce the carbon emissions of the construction process by 20% compared with the use of conventional concrete, while the absence of steel mesh or fibres also makes the flooring material 100% recyclable.
Green Apple Awards national organizer Roger Wolens commented: ‘To show continued interest in environmental issues in the current financial climate shows great foresight and Lafarge deserve the recognition of being Green Apple Award winners.
‘To then go further and become Green Heroes is an even bolder statement of environmental intent, and organizations that go that extra mile…are demonstrating a serious commitment to the world around them.’
The Green Apple Awards began in 1994 and are organized by The Green Organisation, an independent, non-political, non-activist, non-profit-making environmental group dedicated to recognizing, rewarding and promoting environmental best practice around the world.
