Corporate Social Responsibility

Indocement undertakes Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives to provide its communities and environment with the sustenance, care and protection that they deserve to ensure a continuity of growt hand prosperity to the next generations.

Indocement Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program is based on the sustainable development concept that relies upon the triple bottom lines of economic, social and environmental goals. We also based these programs on the framework of the Five Pillars of sustainable development. The Five Pillars cover CSR activities in education, economy, health, social-culture-religion sport and security. In addition, the echoes of the millennium development goals of the United Nations in year 2000 have also been the inspirations of our CSR programs.

Great breakthrough

The breakthrough in CSR programs was achieved by Indocement in 2007, when it integrated the interests of environmental conservation with alternative fuel sourcing and community development and took on a stronger momentum in 2008. These CSR activities center around four separate projects that have provided job opportunities in areas where work was scarce, offered income to people who previously had none, changed people’s mindsets about cleanliness and sanitation in and around their villages, and more importantly, afforded the opportunity for community engagement and development that is both economically feasible and socially sustainable over the long-term.

Jatropha plantation has grown from 30 hectares to more than 170 hectares

In 2007, the world became aware of Indocement’s land recovery project, in which land that had previously been mined-over limestone quarries of Indocement in Citeureup, Cirebon, and Tarjun were converted into a 30 hectares plantation of more than 75,000 fully grown Jatropha trees, widely known for their rich oil seeds.

Over the course of 2008, Indocement would plant more than 90,000 additional seedlings in the three factories, bringing the total area of cultivated land to more than 170 hectares by year-end 2008.

Indocement’s Jatropha project, though still far from being perfect, clearly shows the potential of what can be achieved when a corporation such as Indocement decides to team up with leading universities, and engage the communities in land cultivation that is beneficial economically and environmentally.

Processing municipal solid wastes

If progress of the Jatropha project was encouraging, Indocement had even greater successes with the municipal solid waste management program, which Indocement organized with village leaders and communities surrounding the Company’s cement manufacturing plants. The program was initiated in 2007, and like the jatropha initiative, took off in a big way in 2008, when many of the folks that had been involved in the project began to really feel the benefit of the solid waste processing program. Not only did they find their surroundings clean and healthy, but they also gained economically by collecting and managing their household solid wastes properly.

Two solid waste collection and processing facilities have so far been established in Citeureup and Cirebon. Each day, the facilities produce up to 1.7 tons of solid waste products that are eventually converted into biomass waste and compost. The biomass is used as alternative fuel, while compost is used as organic fertilizers.

Although the amount of derived biomass fuel is negligible when compared to the total energy requirement of Indocement, there is in fact a larger benefit attached to this waste management project – and that is how people and communities are responding positively to the initiative and that, more importantly, people are being made more aware and cognizant of the value of a clean and healthy environment that has transpired in their surroundings.

Producing energy from cow manure

Indocement initiated another farsighted CSR program in 2008, involving the use of cow manure to extract methane, from which gas can be derived for cooking purposes. The project centered around an innovative invention of a simple, cost-effective apparatus that captures the methane and process it into gas for cooking.

Supporting home-scale production of a world-class product

Working together with a leading football manufacturer that regularly exports footballs for international competitions such as the World Cup, Indocement organized groups of previously unemployed people of working age to become sewers in the manufacturing of these footballs. Indocement provides the working premises and facilities, while the football manufacturer provides training and the job order for the stitching of leathers into handcrafted footballs that are used in various international football competitions.

Promoting creativity and innovation in the field of construction

In 2008, Indocement launched the first Indocement Awards competition that seeks the most creative and innovative design or application of construction materials that could prove to be groundbreaking in the field of construction, in addition to finding more creative use for cement and related products.

Indocement prepared for the event extensively for more than a year since May 2007, and executed the competitions to perfection between July and November 2008. The competition itself was a huge success, drawing more than 600 entries that produced winners in five categories. The wide publicity generated from the event was also highly positive, but what impressed Indocement the most was the level of quality that the winning entries achieved, vindicating the decision by Indocement to continue its Indocement Awards contest in the future.