Heidelberg Materials

The company was founded on 5 June 1874 by Johann Philipp Schifferdecker, at Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was making 80,000 tonnes per annum of Portland cement in 1896. It acquired numerous other small companies from 1914 onwards, and by 1936, it was making one million tonnes per annum.

Following the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, the cement industry profited massively from state-run construction and armaments projects, leading to a generally positive view of the policies of the Reich government among workers and management of the company. The company's general director Otto Heuer had joined the NSDAP on 1 May 1933, and was a member of the Freundeskreis Reichsführer SS. During the Second World War, the cement industry was classified as essential to the war effort and initially experienced only minor restrictions in production. As the war progressed, prisoners of war and forced labourers were used in numerous plants; according to the company, the number of people affected is estimated at 1,000.

Activities abroad began with the acquisition of part of Vicat Cement, France. Shipments reached 8.3 million tonnes in 1972. In 1977, a massive program of purchases in North America began with the acquisition of Lehigh Cement. In 1990, expansion in eastern Europe began.

In 1993, it acquired part of SA Cimenteries CBR of Belgium, which already had a major multinational operation. Since then, it has continued to expand, with complete buy out of CBR, and purchases in eastern Europe and Asia. A major step was the acquisition of Scancem in 1999, with operations in Northern Europe as well as Africa. Indocement in Indonesia was included in 2001.

In May 2007, HeidelbergCement announced its intent to purchase the British company Hanson plc for £11 per share, which valued it at approximately £8 billion. This deal made the combined company the second largest cement and building materials company in the world. The transaction was completed through Heidelberg subsidiary Lehigh UK on 22 August 2007.

HeidelbergCement has (2010) 29 cement and grinding plants in Western and Northern Europe, 19 in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, 16 cement plants in North America, and 14 in Africa and the Mediterranean Basin. The company sold Maxit Group and its 35% share in Vicat Cement to help finance its acquisition of Hanson plc in August 2007. In most of the group's European countries, HeidelbergCement is the market leader in the cement business.

Adolf Merckle was a big investor in HeidelbergCement. A capital increase in HeidelbergCement in September 2009, combined with a selling of shares from the Merckle family, opened up for other international owners and higher trading volumes on the stock exchanges. In August 2006, HeidelbergCement AG entered the Indian cement market with the acquisition of Mysore Cement.

In 2013, the cement company CJSC Construction Materials based in the Russian Republic of Bashkortostan was acquired.

In the 2024 financial year, Heidelberg Materials generated revenue of €21.2 billion. During the same financial year, 51,129 employees worked for the group.

Controversial activities and criticism

Climate change

As cement manufacturing is an extremely CO2 intensive process, the cement industry is one of the main contributors to climate change, being responsible for a significant amount of global emissions. Of all companies traded on the DAX, Heidelberg Materials was the second largest CO2 emitter. For this reason, there have already been numerous protests by environmental groups, like Fridays For Future, Extinction Rebellion and Greenpeace. In August 2020, the local group "Wurzeln im Beton" ("Roots in Concrete") blocked the main entrance to the company's headquarters and in May 2021, its cement plant near Heidelberg was blocked by the local Extinction Rebellion chapter.

By 2024, despite reduction of the DAX total, and Heidelberg's emissions in particular, Heidelberg was the largest emitter in the DAX, cement manufacture emissions being particularly difficult to reduce. Nevertheless, Heidelberg plans to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, and to "almost halve" its carbon footprint, when compared with 1990 levels, by 2030. In 2025 Heidelberg's first carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility became operational in Norway.

Indonesia

Heidelberg Materials has been heavily involved in the planned construction of a controversial cement plant on the Indonesian island of Java through its subsidiary "Indocement". The objective is the exploitation of the Kendeng mountains against the resistance of the people living there.

In addition to the destruction of the complex ecological system, the construction also has created the marginalization of partially indigenous living inhabitants of the region to follow. In this region, the indigenous known as Sedulur Kendeng are protesting against the planned mining operation of PT Semen Indonesia, a state owned enterprise. In March 2017, 50 protestors poured concrete over their feet in front of the Presidential Palace in Jakarta. This is the second time this has occurred in eleven months.

In addition to the protest against the factory building and its ecological consequences as "misconceived 'development' at the expense of indigenous and peasants", the activists also appealed politically at Heidelberg Materials that a multinational "company should not invest in environmental destruction and human rights violations, in any country in the world."

In September 2020, representatives of the local communities submitted a complaint to the German government. It alleges Heidelberg Materials' plans in the Kendeng mountains to threaten their livelihoods, water resources and the local ecosystem as well as sites sacred to local Indigenous Samin communities. As a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Germany maintains a National Contact Point that addresses complaints against German companies for overseas violations of the OECD Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises. The guidelines contain standards on human rights and the environment.