Lafarge Africa Plc has announced a collaboration with Innovate UK to drive an Open Innovation challenge through the Global Alliance Africa project.
This partnership aims to assist Lafarge Africa in discovering creative circular economy initiatives for utilizing construction demolition materials (CDM) to address material waste and climate change challenges.
In doing so, Lafarge Africa emphasizes its dedication to substantially contributing to the decarbonization of the construction industry.
The Open Innovation challenge targets three key objectives: creating digital tools to locate cementitious CDM sources, securing these sources in urban settings, and enhancing local technologies for processing and recycling these materials.
Lolu Alade-Akinyemi, the GMD/CEO of Lafarge Africa, expressed, “We are a building solutions company committed to sustainability, innovation, and operational excellence.
‘’As a member of the Holcim Group, we are reducing carbon emissions by fostering innovative ideas and technologies to facilitate sustainable transformation within the construction industry.
‘’To positively impact the construction sector, we seek creative circular ideas for utilising Construction Demolition Materials (CDM) to address material waste and climate change challenges to contribute to decarbonisation.”
Lafarge Africa and Global Alliance Africa seek sustainable, local solutions rather than importing raw materials and are actively engaged in R&D to make recycled materials more reactive & valuable.
Innovate UK: Open Innovation Lead Babar Javed says, “Global Alliance Africa’s Open Innovation intervention aims to help large companies find innovative solutions to technical problems that their traditional supply chains cannot solve.
‘’Our bespoke platform matches real industry problems with innovative companies or academic institutions that can provide novel, market-ready solutions. We are delighted to work with Lafarge Africa to find innovative solutions for recycling Construction Demolition Materials”.
The pilot project will start in Lagos, Nigeria to scale to other states in the long term.
Up to £25,000, seed funding (subject to T&C) is available for this challenge, and innovative companies from various sectors, including Construction, Recycling, Manufacturing, Materials, Chemistry, Energy, Data, Design, AI, Energy, etc., are invited to apply.
The application deadline is the 27th of August, 2024.
The winner of the innovation challenge will pitch to Lafarge Africa and be invited to collaborate on a trial project with them.
