Section ECONOMY
TOPIC Initiatives on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic

IMERYS Industrial Minerals Greece Single-Member Société Anonyme

Caring for Our Planet: Imerys Biodiversity Strategy
  • Explain the link between human health and wellbeing and the health of our environment and biodiversity
  • Raise awareness on the importance of biodiversity loss and its causes (loss or degradation of habitats, pollution, climate change, invasive alien species, overexploitation of natural resources)
  • Reflect on the impacts of our activities but also inform and promote solutions, good practices and actions
  • Support international and public initiatives and deploy our Act4nature commitments.

Imerys employees

From 2021 and continues.

“Bio” means life and “diversity” means variety, so biodiversity (or biological diversity) is the incredible variety of living things in nature and how they interact with each other.

In the last 50 years our world has been transformed by an explosion in consumption and human population growth. Our ecological footprint far exceeds the planet's ability to regenerate. The biodiversity loss rate is more than one hundred to thousand times higher than the usual rate due to human activities.

The proportion of threats to biodiversity has oriented our action plan and the protocol baseline.

Imerys Biodiversity Strategy and Policy 

  • Environmental charter: The charter has been signed by A.Dazza began in 2020. Under this corporate Environmental charter, Imerys set preservation of the environment as a priority.
  • Protocol and improvement tools: Imerys implements tools to integrate the preservation of the biodiversity in all its operations.
  • Group partnership: Imerys renewed its scientific partnership with the UMS-Patrinat (French Natural History Museum)
  • Act4nature commitments: Imerys signed the act4nature international Business Commitment launched by Entreprises pour l’Environnement (EpE). Within this framework, one of our commitments is to carry out biodiversity awareness-raising and training activities on our industrial sites.

Imerys has defined “Caring for our planet” as one of the key-areas of our CSR approach, SustainAgility.

Imerys CEO, Alessandro Dazza, stated: “Operating in varied environments and ecosystems, Imerys is speeding up its efforts to integrate the preservation of biodiversity into all our operations and take concrete action to preserve or restore biological diversity.”

Aligned with the international calendar, Imerys CSR approach, SustainAgility, and our act4nature commitments, the 2021 ‘Caring for our Planet’ workshop focused on biodiversity.

  • Imerys renewed its scientific partnership with the UMS-Patrinat (French Natural History Museum)
  • Imerys signed the act4nature international Business Commitment launched by Entreprises pour l’Environnement (EpE).

A workshop for Imerys employees was performed that was structured as follows:

  • Introductory video provided by the Group;
  • Interactive workshop, using a serious game format:
  1. Explain the causes of biodiversity erosion
  2. Reflect on the impacts of the activities of the Group / site in connection with these causes
  3. Present and find actions and solutions to reduce them.

Assignment of a Biodiversity Referee for each site.

In all the facilities of Imerys Greece, in Milos and in Kifissia

  • Habitat destruction: restore natural habitats during and at the end of our operations;
  • Climate change: reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases aligned on a 2° C trajectory by 2030;
  • Invasive alien species (IAS): integrate prevention and control measures at all of our sites, and favor the use of native species in revegetation operations;
  • Pollution: reduce our impacts thanks to a continuous improvement approach, using tools such as the environment assessment matrix;
  • Over exploitation of natural resources: work on circular economy opportunities to maximize the use of natural resources.  

Preserving the environment is a priority and the future for Imerys. 11 million species provide solutions to humankind’s current and future needs, including those of Imerys, its employees, their families and local communities.

Furthermore, our programs and activities regarding the environment are visual proof that we indeed care for the environment and the millions of species that live inside it. Thus, another benefit for Imerys is that we get to be known for our biodiversity care and actions to protect it.