Environmental Management for Sustainability Report: AK Cement, Ghana

This report critically assesses the sustainability mechanisms of AK Cement in Ghana, which is facing environmental and financial challenges due to unsustainable practices. The report identifies key environmental issues such as climate change, water and noise pollution, and high energy demands. It analyzes the company's energy consumption patterns, highlighting the need for a sustainable energy conservation mix. The report proposes alternative energy sources like hydroelectric, thermal, and solar energy, discussing their environmental impacts and economic benefits. Furthermore, it evaluates the long-term economic values of sustainability, including improved brand image, increased productivity, employee attraction, customer satisfaction, and waste reduction. The report emphasizes the urgent need for AK Cement to adopt sustainable practices to reduce costs, increase profitability, and ensure its long-term viability in the face of increasing energy demands and environmental concerns. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of sustainability for the company's future and its contribution to the growth and profit of the country.

Running Head: ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT FOR SUSTAINABILITY
ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT FOR SUSTAINABILITY
NAME OF THE STUDENT
NAME OF THE UNIVERSITY
AUTHOR NOTE

1Environmental Management For Sustainability
Executive Summary
The report will cover the part of how the weak sustainability that has been recorder in the AK
cement which is based in Ghana needed to be revert back. The company is facing various
charges against them by EPA, PDS and certain other for the non-payment of various electricity
debt and if this is not checked the company might be declared unsustainable. In this report the
part will cover different alternate method that can be utilized in place of the traditional fossil fuel
and what effect will that have on the company apart from these, the report will further discuss
about various advantages the sustainability will bring over the profitability of the said company
and how this is linked with the growth and profit of the whole country.

2Environmental Management For Sustainability
Table of Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................1
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Sustainable and environmental issues.............................................................................................3
Climate change/ Global warming................................................................................................3
Water Pollution............................................................................................................................4
Noise pollution.............................................................................................................................4
Air pollution.................................................................................................................................4
Hydro electric..............................................................................................................................5
Thermal energy............................................................................................................................5
Solar energy.................................................................................................................................6
Causes of high energy demands......................................................................................................6
Sustainable energy conservation mix..............................................................................................7
More improved brand Image and competitive advantage...........................................................7
Increasing productivity and reducing cost...................................................................................7
Attraction of Employees and Investors........................................................................................8
Customer Attraction and satisfaction and shareholders satisfaction...........................................8
Reduction of wastage...................................................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

3Environmental Management For Sustainability
Introduction
Greener technologies and sustainable developments are basically the main tools that are
getting used by the companies in shaping the world into the better place. Similarly AK cement
which is located in Ghana is dealing with their own sustainable development activities since
there are many activities which is carrying forward by the company which is leading into making
the company not sustainable in future and therefore, they are now open over the idea of
maintaining their sustainable report. In this report the part will cover different alternate method
that can be utilized in place of the traditional fossil fuel and what effect will that have on the
company apart from these, the report will further discuss about various advantages the
sustainability will bring over the profitability of the said company and how this is linked with the
growth and profit of the whole country ( Rehman et al, 2019).
Sustainable and environmental issues
Climate change/ Global warming
The cement industry is one of the primary producers of the carbon dioxide which is a
important greenhouse gas. The topsoil of the earth is affected by the concrete companies which is
the most fertile layer. Therefore, it leads to various damages to the soil including the erosion of
the soil, water pollution and also flooding. It leads to the almost 8% of the worldwide emission
of carbon dioxide. Out of which 50% constitutes by the chemical building process and 40% from
the burning fuel. The main reason for the carbon emission is that the cement is getting heated at a

4Environmental Management For Sustainability
very high temperature and therefore it leads to such high emission on their part which leads to
the highest percentage contribution to the greenhouse effect and global warming.
Water Pollution
Water utilization is done at different stages in the production process. There are only
some processes where the water is utilized in the production process and in the burning of the
clinker and cooling processes for the cooling of the gases and also in the technological process in
the slurry industry. However, it has to be noted that the storage and the handling fuels is the
reason for the contamination of soil and groundwater.
Noise pollution
The site in the quarry site, the blast generally cause a lot of noise. However, the place
where the quarrying take place, population doesn’t stay and therefore, not much problem is
created due to this. The heavy machinery and also those large fans that are used in the various
parts of the cement manufacturing industries which leads to the noise and vibrations all these
lead to the various level of noise pollution.
Air pollution
During the manufacturing of the cement there arise both air and noise pollution. On top
of that from the storage and handling of the waste there might arise odor. The major air
pollutants that gets released during the manufacturing of the cement production are compounds
of nitrogen, Sulphur dioxide, total organic compounds and volatile organic compounds, PCDDs,
PCDFs, metal compounds, carbon monoxide and hydrogen fluoride and hydrogen chloride (Lin
and Agyeman 2019).

5Environmental Management For Sustainability
The world is continuously becoming a global village with the increasing importance of
the energy by all the population in the world. All these lead to the creation of huge demand of the
energy and with the increase of population and demands for the energy resources in huge level it
leads to the decrease in the supply of the energy. Therefore turning to the alternate type of energy
will be most beneficial. Different kinds of energy namely the hydroelectricity, thermal energy,
solar energy can be used in place of the fossil fuels. Coal, petroleum and natural gas are the
source of fossil fuels that are used in their natural as well in different forms. However their
alarming depletion and its adverse effect on the environment lead to the switching towards the
alternative source of energy.
Hydro electric
The cost for the hydro power in the AK cement leads to USD 1050/kw to as high as the
USD 7651/kw and it also needs to be considered for the smaller hydro power projects the range
varies from USD 1301/kw to USD 8000/Kw. Addition of the additional capacity on the existing
hydropower schemes or the dams which don’t have the hydropower plant can be significantly
cheaper. It will be beneficial for the environment and will help in maintaining the sustainability
of the company. However, hydroelectric stations emit methane which seemed to be a stronger
greenhouse gas.
Thermal energy
The thermal energy has a very minimal impact on the environment due to the reason that
they need very shallow geothermal resources that are 334 feet off the surface. The mere effect
that it has is that the temperature of the groundwater changes. It lead to either increase or
decrease in the temperature. The open-loop systems that are using ground water or the lake water
will have to face the temperature change in the ground water level especially in the regions with

6Environmental Management For Sustainability
the high level of ground water. However the initial cost of installation of the infrastructure is
pretty high, however, once the resources get proven the yearly cost of the fuel which is hot water
and steam is minimal and doesn’t seem to rise (Wang 2019).
Solar energy
Industrial and manufacturing business units like cement manufacturing industries are
hardly benefitted by the solar energy. However, there are possibility of utilizing the solar energy
in the cement manufacturing industry in a logical manner. With the help of HOMER Pro micro
grid software, solar Pv systems has been simulated and there the reduction in the net present cost
has been identified. Pollutant emission, consumption of the coal, cost of production of cement
and also levelised cost of energy has been seen with the implementation of the HOMER. The
result has concluded that the pollution got reduced to 24% and it saved almost 709130 kg of coal
per year with 0.678% increase in the production of the cement. The proposed system will be
extremely beneficial when the Pv prices will fall down in future.
Causes of high energy demands
There has been several experiments that suggested that there is a link between the
consumption of energy and the growth rate. If there is a discussion related to Ghana it has been
noted in the study that there is a unidirectional causality that run from the economic growth to
the consumption of electricity. It has been concluded that there is a requirement of the electricity
measure in order to manage the demand and supply and also consumption of the electricity as the
population of the Ghana expands. The turkey has also shown the similar kind of relationship
between the demand and consumption of the energy. The finding revealed that there is a
bidirectional causal relationship between the GDP and the energy consumption.

7Environmental Management For Sustainability
The causes that led to the higher energy demands in the company is the age-old
machinery that leads to the higher energy consumption. The other cause is the inefficient
utilization of the available resources and also the current usable machinery and power plants
which are simply wasting the usage of the available resources (Odijie 2019).
Sustainable energy conservation mix
In the last decades sustainability has become more than just a piece of word or a term. It
has been noted that sustainability has shown immense benefits to the business when it can be
properly integrated into the operations of the business. Certain advantages related to the practice
of sustainability are as follows:-
More improved brand Image and competitive advantage
Over the survey that has been conducted over almost 54000 consumers, the natural
marketing institute has revealed that almost 60% of the consumers consider what kind of impact
the company is having over the environment before making the decision related to the purchases
or sales. The improvement plan of the brand by creation of awareness of doing something good
is creating a buzz in the company’s advertisement campaigns (Botchway and Masoperh 2019).
Increasing productivity and reducing cost
Many people who are against in employing sustainable practices into the industry thinks
that it will feed on the company’s profit. However, it has to be noted that when sustainable
methods gets involved in the business practices it ultimately reduces cost and increases
productivity of the employees.

8Environmental Management For Sustainability
Attraction of Employees and Investors
It has to be noted that in the current times, people has been keen on associating with the
companies that has positive impact on the environment. Since, people these days are listening to
many things related to the depletion of the condition of the environment and therefore, they don’t
want to be the part of the company which is creating a disaster in the environmental condition.
Customer Attraction and satisfaction and shareholders satisfaction
The use of sustainability not only lead to the reduction of cost it also helps in the creation
of profit, thereby a win-win situation for the shareholders. However with the reduction of cost,
the price of the product also gets reduced thereby, leading to the customer satisfaction.
Reduction of wastage
The most important part and factor for turning towards sustainability is the reduction of
the wastage. From the very start when from the year 1991, people started recycling and
collecting empty cans which lead to more mitigation measure that includes value engineering,
conservation of forests and tress for more energy conserving ways of production of paper and
many more of such kind.
Conclusion
The report has reflected the necessity for the A K cement to move as far as possible
towards the path of the sustainability. This will not only reduce the cost, however, it will also
lead to the increase of profitability of the company. Therefore, with the increasing demand of the
energy and depletion of the natural resources, there is an alarming need for the adoption of the
sustainable means.

9Environmental Management For Sustainability
References
"A review of renewable energy sources, sustainability issues and climate change mitigation"
(2020), p. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311916.2016.1167990
(Accessed: 5 March 2020).
"Feasibility analysis of distributed solar electricity penetration in cement manufacturing plants"
(2020), p. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01430750.2017.1378719?
scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=taen20 (Accessed: 5 March 2020).
(2020) Ena.lp.edu.ua. Available at: http://ena.lp.edu.ua:8080/bitstream/ntb/16692/1/55-Stajanca-
296-302.pdf (Accessed: 5 March 2020).
(2020) Pcmproducts.net. Available at:
http://www.pcmproducts.net/files/500_95_005_tes_report.pdf (Accessed: 5 March 2020).
6 Benefits of Becoming a Sustainable Business (2016). Available at:
https://www.environmentalleader.com/2016/03/6-benefits-of-becoming-a-sustainable-business/
(Accessed: 5 March 2020).
Botchway, E.A. and Masoperh, A., 2019. INVESTIGATING THE LOW UTILIZATION OF POZZOLANA
CEMENT IN THE GHANAIAN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY.
Environmental Impacts of Solar Power (2020). Available at:
https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/environmental-impacts-solar-power (Accessed: 5 March
2020).

10Environmental Management For Sustainability
Geothermal energy - Environmental effects and economic costs (2020). Available at:
https://www.britannica.com/science/geothermal-energy/Environmental-effects-and-economic-
costs (Accessed: 5 March 2020).
Gokten, S. (2012) "An Overview of Financial Aspect for Thermal Power Plants", Thermal Power
Plants. doi: 10.5772/27487.
Lin, B. and Agyeman, S.D., 2019. Assessing Ghana's carbon dioxide emissions through energy
consumption structure towards a sustainable development path. Journal of Cleaner Production, 238,
p.117941.
Odijie, M.E., 2019. Is traditional industrial policy defunct? Evidence from the Nigerian cement
industry. Review of International Political Economy, pp.1-23.
P.M., M. (2011) "Alternative Fuels in Cement Manufacturing", Alternative Fuel. doi:
10.5772/22319.
Power tariff soars to a decade high of Rs 17.61/unit in spot market (2018). Available at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/energy/power/power-tariff-soars-to-a-decade-
high-of-rs-17-61/unit-in-spot-market/articleshow/66018887.cms (Accessed: 5 March 2020).
Rehman, A., Khan, K.A., Hamid, T., Nasir, H., Ahmad, I. and Alam, M., 2020. Effective Utilization of
Municipal Solid Waste as Substitute for Natural Resources in Cement Industry. Civil Engineering
Journal, 6(2), pp.238-257.
Tunn, V.S.C., Bocken, N.M.P., van den Hende, E.A. and Schoormans, J.P.L., 2019. Business models for
sustainable consumption in the circular economy: An expert study. Journal of cleaner production, 212,
pp.324-333.

11Environmental Management For Sustainability
Wang, C., Ghadimi, P., Lim, M.K. and Tseng, M.L., 2019. A literature review of sustainable consumption
and production: A comparative analysis in developed and developing economies. Journal of cleaner
production, 206, pp.741-754.