Press Release

Erkam Kocakerim, CEO of Limak Cement, spoke at the Climate Change Summit: "Green transformation is a crossroads on the way to the century of Turkey"

"Climate Change Summit 2023: Green Transformation" was organized by Capital and Ekonomist magazines in cooperation with the Ministry of Environment, Urbanization, and Climate Change and UNDP. During the meeting held in Istanbul, Erkam Kocakerim, CEO of Limak Cement, characterized the green transformation as a crossroads on the way to the century of Turkey.  

Louisa Vinton, United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Resident Representative in Turkey, delivered the opening speech at the meeting where more than 200 senior executives and finance representatives, including representatives of carbon intensive industries, came together and exchanged views on the realization of the "green transformation" in Turkey.

Resident Representative Vinton explained that the private sector continues to produce the majority of harmful emissions that cause climate change and said, "We believe that with the strong involvement of the private sector in the process, the time when Turkey is planned to reach the peak greenhouse gas emissions, which is 2038, may be earlier. As UNDP, we rely on the creativity and resilience of the Turkish business world to find the methods to decarbonize and accelerate the schedule." Erkam Kocakerim, CEO of Limak Cement, on the other hand, shared his views with remarkable topics at the meeting.

"The issue of green transformation is exactly a crossroads and paradigm shift on the way to the century of Turkey"

Expressed his views at the Climate Change Summit 2023: Green Transformation, Kocakerim said, "It would be a great mistake for our country to focus on the risks that energy-intensive focus industries will face in EU exports. Economy, energy, and climate change are evolving and developing as an inseparable trio. In the new energy economy, there emerges a huge market opportunity for clean technology, and the market for wind, solar, lithium-ion batteries, electrolyzers, and fuel cells will reach trillions of dollars before the 2050 carbon neutrality targets, surpassing the market of oil and related industry. In order to gain a strong position in this market, we need to evaluate the next three years very well."    

Kocakerim also highlighted that tens of thousands of workforce should be trained for numerous business lines, such as hydrogen production, transportation, storage and utilization, CCUS, electrolyzer, fuel cells, renewable fuels, measurement laboratories, and accreditation, and that each title will need to be designed as an employment pool and ecosystem requiring deep science.  

Other topics of Limak Cement's CEO Erkam Kocakerim's speech were as follows:

"In order to complete the design and commissioning of the Emission Trading System and the necessary structural elements as soon as possible, we must work without sleeping."

First of all, we should urgently complete the Turkish Emissions Trading System and its components, simultaneously create our renewable energy roadmap updated with renewable hydrogen, CCUS, and renewable fuels, and publish our hydrogen and CO2 country atlas.

"It is possible for our cement industry to achieve the EU cement industry 2030 carbon reduction targets, while qualified R&D and green financing support are essential for the 2050 carbon neutrality target"

The cement industry consumes 19% of the energy consumed by our country's industry, and our total carbon emission load is around 75 million tons. Approximately 40% of the carbon emission source of our industry is fossil fuel and electrical energy. Technological equipment and specific energy consumption KPIs are 10% better, compared to the EU and the US. The establishment of the required infrastructure by utilizing the method of incinerating wastes, particularly biomass, access to low-carbon and/or carbon neutral fuels, transition to cement types with low clinker content, and legislative changes for capacity planning in line with our total carbon emission commitments will be sufficient to ensure that the 2030 target is attained. We should reinterpret the strong correlation between the waste disposal rate of municipalities and the alternative utilization rate of the cement industry according to our carbon strategy.

"Limak Cement's new business platforms compatible with paradigm changes will also be the most important catalyst in the Green Transformation"

Limak Cement has the second largest capacity of our country with a clinker capacity of 10 million tons from east to west. In addition to that, it is included in the list of the world's 50 largest producers with its 2 factories in Sub-Saharan Africa in parallel with Turkey's opening out to Africa and its cement capacity of nearly 20 million tons.  

It aims to become a multinational company that leads the industry with the business platforms it has changed in line with the twin transformation targets on the axis of sustainability and digital transformation. In line with that, our Human Resources Transformation Project compatible with the paradigm changes, our restructured R&D Center, Digital Transformation Center of Excellence, Limak Cement Academy, and Decarbonization department will also act as catalysts in our Green Transformation journey.

While we carry out a wide range of studies from carbon capture to hydrogen production technologies, from low-carbon products to 3D Concrete Printers with our R&D identity, we make continuous progress in the field of big data, data analytics, and artificial intelligence in our digital transformation center.