Holcim : Climate report 2023

2023 CLIMATE REPORT

INTRODUCTION

In 2023 we accelerated progress across all our decarbonization targets.

CLIMATE HIGHLIGHTS 2023

20%	3%	6
Reduction in	Reduction in CO2 net/ton	CCUS projects in
CO2/net sales1	of cementitious material2	execution
5M	8.4M	+24%
Tons of CO2 /annum	Tons of CDM recycled	Recycling of CDM2
captured by 2030

• 2023 Scope 1 + Scope 2 CO2 emissions per million of net sales compared to 2022
  2 Compared to 2022

CLIMATE	DRIVING	ADVOCACY AND
LEADERSHIP	CIRCULARITY	ENGAGEMENT
P4	P38	P46

Cover Image:

Little Island park in New York City, with a view of One World Trade Center - built with 150,000 m3 of specially-designed Holcim concrete, manufactured using recycled materials

CLIMATE	DRIVING	ADVOCACY AND	CLIMATE
LEADERSHIP	CIRCULARITY	ENGAGEMENT	REPORTING

CONTENTS

2 CEO's and Chief Sustainability Officer's Letter

CLIMATE LEADERSHIP

8 Decarbonizing Holcim

12 Decarbonizing our solutions

16 Decarbonizing our energy mix

24 Decarbonizing our mobility

26 Driving advanced technologies

28 Advancing carbon capture, utilization and storage technology

34 Sustainable construction

36 Reinventing concrete

DRIVING CIRCULARITY

40 Driving circularity to build new from old

42 Circular living

44 From sea to city

ADVOCACY AND ENGAGEMENT

48 Advocacy positions and transparency

54 Just Transition

58 Holcim Foundation

CLIMATE REPORTING

62 Climate governance

64 Climate-related risks and opportunities

80 Scenario analysis

84 Performance data tables

LEADING IN ESG DISCLOSURES &

TRANSPARENCY

Read more about our transparent ESG disclosures in the 2023 Integrated Annual Report.

Art. 964b Swiss Code of Obligations.

Read on page 434

EU Taxonomy. Read on page 266

TCFD. Read on page 238

TNFD. Read on page 238

HOLCIM  2023 Climate Report  1

INTRODUCTON

We are decarbonizing Holcim for people and the planet,

from our operations and solutions through to buildings in use.

2  HOLCIM  2023 Climate Report

CLIMATE LEADERSHIP

DRIVING CIRCULARITY

ADVOCACY AND ENGAGEMENT

CLIMATE REPORTING

"With climate at the core of our strategy, Holcim is leading the shift to low-carbon, circular and energy-efficient building solutions."

JAN JENISCH

Chairman & CEO

In 2023 Holcim delivered record results and achieved its Strategy 2025 financial targets two years ahead

of plan, while advancing its leadership in sustainability. With climate at the core of our strategy, we are making decarbonization a driver of profitable growth and accelerating green growth with our advanced building solutions.

Cities are where more than half of us live, and where 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions occur.

With the building sector at the backbone of urbanization, Holcim is playing a central role in creating a future

that works for people and the planet.

Taking a rigorous science-driven approach, Holcim is accelerating the shift to circular cities. In this decade of action to 2030, we are executing our net-zero 1.5°C- aligned targets with speed and scale to decarbonize building across its lifecycle.

In 2023, we made progress across all our decarbonization targets, reducing CO2 per net sales by 20 percent. Region Europe even launched our industry's most ambitious targets, to reach 285 kg CO2 net per ton of cementitious by 2030, a 45 percent reduction versus 2020.

Making net-zero cement a reality, we aim to deliver eight million tons of fully decarbonized cement a year by 2030. We owe this breakthrough to six carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) projects that we are executing to capture five million tons of CO2 per annum by 2030.

CCUS complements our other decarbonization levers. Expanding our low-carbon formulation, we advanced use of innovative raw materials like calcined clay, which reduces the carbon footprint of cement by up to

50 percent, and accelerated our shift to decarbonized energy: expanding use of alternative fuels while advancing our share of renewable electricity globally.

Driving circular construction across key metropolitan areas, we launched ECOCycle®. Using this proprietary circular technology platform, we are accelerating urban mining, increasing recycling of construction demolition materials into new building solutions by 24 percent

in 2023.

"In 2023, we accelerated climate action, making progress across all of our decarbonization levers to lead the transition

to sustainable building."

NOLLAIG FORREST

Chief Sustainability Officer

We gained recognition for our leadership in this area by winning the Circular Transition Award at the Reuters Responsible Business Awards, as well as the Lighthouse Award for circularity at the World Economic Forum. We signed a partnership with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation to accelerate circularity, collaborating on a series of ambitious initiatives.

In a year when Holcim achieved record results, we accelerated green growth with our billion Swiss-franc sustainable brands. ECOPlanet low-carbon cement reached more than CHF two billion in net sales, while ECOPact low-carbon concrete delivered more than CHF one billion in net sales.

Sustainability is inseparable from our business, and we reached a new level of disclosure this year as well, integrating this Climate Report within our Annual Report for the first time, sharing our EU Taxonomy results, and aligning with the non-financial reporting requirements of the Swiss Code of Obligations (page 434 in the 2023 Integrated Annual Report).

During this exciting time for our sector, breakthrough innovations are unlocking sustainable solutions at scale. At Holcim, we are transforming the way the world builds for a net-zero future.

JAN JENISCH

Chairman & CEO

NOLLAIG FORREST

Chief Sustainability Officer

HOLCIM  2023 Climate Report  3

CLIMATE LEADERSHIP

We are decarbonizing Holcim for peopleand the planet,

from our operations and solutions through to buildings in use.

CityLife in Milan, Italy, is one of the most important urban redevelopment

projects in Europe. Two iconic skyscrapers set in a new park, a brand new shopping district and a new metro line have all been built with Holcim products

4  HOLCIM  2023 Climate Report

CLIMATE LEADERSHIP

DRIVING CIRCULARITY

ADVOCACY AND	CLIMATE
ENGAGEMENT	REPORTING

IN THIS SECTION

• Decarbonizing Holcim

1. Decarbonizing our solutions

1. Decarbonizing our energy mix

1. Decarbonizing our mobility

1. Driving advanced technologies

1. Advancing carbon capture, utilization and storage technology

1. Sustainable construction

1. Reinventing concrete

CASE STUDY

Decarbonization

in Europe

Leveraging an advanced regulatory environment, we have set the industry's most ambitious targets to make decarbonization a profitable growth driver in Europe.

Meeting customers' sustainability needs, Holcim is expanding its multi-billion brands delivering premium margins. By 2030 we aim to grow our low-carbon cement ECOPlanet to reach more than 50 percent of cement net sales, and produce eight million tons of fully decarbonized cement each year.

Making circularity a driver of profitable growth, we want to increase our ECOCycle® circular technology platform to 150 sites in Europe by 2030, to recycle 20 million tons of construction demolition materials per annum.

We are accelerating CCUS too. Six full-scale projects have been selected for EU funding to capture five million tons of CO2 annually by 2030, while delivering high returns, with eight additional projects in development

Learn more on our website

"Europe offers the most advanced regulatory environment in the world to accelerate the transition to net zero, from the EU green deal to carbon pricing."

MILJAN GUTOVIC

Region Head Europe and CEO Designate

HOLCIM  2023 Climate Report  5

CLIMATE LEADERSHIP

CLIMATE

MAKING PROGRESS ACROSS ALL DECARBONIZATION LEVERS

ACCELERATING GREEN GROWTH	2023 IMPACT
IMPACT DASHBOARD
ECOPACT READY-MIX	19%
NET SALES
TONS OF CONSTRUCTION	8.4M
DEMOLITION MATERIALS RECYCLED
GREEN CAPEX CHF	402M
SUSTAINABLE FINANCE	40%
REDUCTION CO NET/T CEM	3%
YEAR-ON-YEAR2

RECOGNIZED CLIMATE AND NATURE LEADERSHIP

First in sector with SBTi- validated net-zero targets

Piloting science-based targets for nature

Signatory since 2017 with aligned reporting

Taskforce member and early adopter

6  HOLCIM  2023 Climate Report

CLIMATE LEADERSHIP

DRIVING CIRCULARITY

ADVOCACY AND ENGAGEMENT

CLIMATE REPORTING

2021

2022

2023

2025 IMPACT

25%

10M

500M

40%

2%-4%

'Energy Transition	'Circularity Lighthouse
Changemaker'	Award'

BY 2030

AMBITIONS FOR A 1.5°C FUTURE

5M

Tons of CO2 captured each year in Europe using CCUS

2BN	8M
Investment	Tons of net-zero
in CCUS CHF	cement per annum

Six CCUS projects selected for EU grants

HOLCIM  2023 Climate Report  7

CLIMATE LEADERSHIP CONTINUED

CLIMATE

DECARBONIZING HOLCIM TO BECOME NET-ZERO

At Holcim, we take a science-driven approach to becoming

a net-zero company. In 2023, we made strong progress towards our targets, which are in line with the 1.5°C framework.

Our net-zero pledge

With climate action at the core of Holcim's strategy, we have 2030 and 2050 net-zero targets in line with the 1.5°C framework validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) for all three scopes.

Our Climate Policy

Holcim's approach towards accelerating climate action while enabling a Just Transition and climate adaptation are described in our Climate Policy. The main principle of our policy is the delivery of our actions in a rigorous, science-based manner, to execute our net-zero journey. We comply with local, state, federal and national regulations in all our operations and advocate for collective actions with relevant stakeholders.

Read more about climate- and nature-related risks and opportunities on page 64

What is new?

We have further updated our 2030 and 2050 targets by:

• Upgrading our combined Scope 1 & 2 2030 targets to meet the latest SBTi validation criteria
• Extending our 2050 target coverage to include all 15 categories of Scope 3 emissions

FOR YEARS, HOLCIM HAS BEEN AT THE FOREFRONT OF CLIMATE ACTION:

2020

2020 / 2021

2021 / 2022

2023

2023

In 2020, Holcim was	In 2020, we	In 2021, Holcim was
the first global	launched ECOPact	first in its sector with
building solutions	concrete, and	SBTi-validated 2030
company to sign the	followed that in	and 2050 net-zero
United Nations	2021 with the launch	targets. In 2022, we
Global Compact's	of ECOPlanet	upgraded our 2030
'Business Ambition	cement, to offer the	targets to align with
for 1.5°C' initiative,	broadest range of	our sector's new 1.5°C
with intermediate	low-carbon	science-based
2030 targets	solutions.	framework.
approved by SBTi.

In 2023, Holcim was selected for funding from the European Union (EU) Innovation Fund for six of its breakthrough carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) projects in Germany, Poland, Greece, France, Croatia and Belgium.

Holcim committed to producing eight million tons of fully decarbonized cement per annum by 2030, thanks to the six CCUS projects in Europe that are planned to go live before 2030. One of the projects, Lägerdorf in Germany, won two awards at COP28.

8  HOLCIM  2023 Climate Report