Green ambitions drive Lemahieu group towards a carbon-neutral future

As part of the Paris Agreement, 195 parties committed to keeping the rise in the global average temperature to well within 2°C above the pre-industrial level and continuing their efforts to contain the rise in temperature to 1.5°C.

To achieve this goal, we must reduce the global greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible and reach a balance between anthropogenic emissions and removals (i.e., carbon neutrality) by the second half of this century.

In recent years, Lemahieu Group has been working to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by:

• Recovering rainwater in our production process.

• Heating our production site using wood shavings.

• Installing a wind turbine that provides us with green electricity in Ghent.

• Investing in an environmentally friendly solution for fire-retardant treatment (Burnblock®) of timber and panels.

The independent climate consulting agency CO2logic and certification body Vinçotte have made an analysis of our carbon emissions scope 1+2, as well as a significant part of the relevant scope 3 emissions, i.e., commuting, business travel, waste processing, paper procurement, and indirect scope 1+2 emissions.

We then set out our ambitions to reduce our ecological footprint and meet the European climate targets in a climate strategy.

Our efforts in recent years to limit our ecological impact in recent years will earn us carbon-neutral certification in 2021. We offset our unavoidable residual emissions by supporting two CO2logic-certified climate projects.

• Uganda Water Project(‘Gold Standard’ certified water project)

• Forestry Zambia Project(‘Verified Carbon Standard’ certified forest project)

In 2021, we will take it a step further and continue our efforts to reduce our carbon emissions on two fronts: transport and energy. “Although we are very ambitious, we are also realistic. And even though we will probably never reach zero carbon emissions, we will keep challenging ourselves, and CO2logic’s annual audit will show us clearly where our focus should be. In any case, we have set a target of reducing carbon emissions by a further quarter in 2021," explains Mike Lemahieu, Managing Director and owner of Lemahieu Group.

We have already taken the first steps towards this goal: “In Ostend, we are investing in solar panels that will power the entire production plant with green electricity. Furthermore, all the sales representatives’ cars will be replaced by hybrids.”

We expect that these efforts will result in an annual emission reduction of 25%, or 456 tCO2e, from 2022 onwards. Lemahieu Group will continue to offset its unavoidable residual emissions through CO2logic-certified climate projects.