Gypsum industry news

Belgium: Etex has launched its new Road to Sustainability 2030 circularity and decarbonisation strategy. The strategy sets out the company’s 2030 ambitions under five headings. Under health, safety and well-being, Etex aims to reach zero fatalities, burnouts or incidents of harm; under customer engagement, it aims to build a sustainable roadmap for each product platform by 2025; under diversity, equity and inclusion, it will extend its policies, procedures and practices across all teams. Meanwhile, under decarbonisation, Etex will reduce Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 35% compared to 2018, and under circularity it will use over 20% of circular input as raw material, send zero waste to landfill, use 100% recycled packaging and reduce plastic packaging by 20% compared to 2018, offer a product take-back service across 80% of its European markets and dedicate 50% of its innovation resources to sustainability.

Chief executive officer Bernard Delvaux said “Today Etex has sustainability as a guiding compass of business transformation, with concrete objectives that reflect the company’s ambition. We are on an exciting journey towards improving sustainability in the short and long term. We know there is a long road ahead, which is why we invite all our stakeholders to further support us in becoming a leading benchmark in our industry.”

Canada: Saint-Gobain has named Julie Bonamy Racine as the chief executive officer (CEO) of its subsidiary CertainTeed Canada. She succeeds Richard Juggery, who led the company for four years before being named CEO of Saint-Gobain Benelux in July 2022. She will also be CertainTeed Canada's first female CEO.

Bonamy previously worked as the CEO of Saint-Gobain Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. She joined the company in 2017 in Paris as Group Vice President, Strategy & Planning. Earlier in her career, Bonamy worked in the public sector, most recently as an adviser for the budget and digital sector for the Office of the French Minister for the Economy. She is a graduate of the Paris Institute of Political Studies (IEP de Paris) and the National School of Public Administration (Ecole Nationale d'Administration).

France: SaintGobain says that the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) has approved its CO₂ reduction targets. The group plans to achieve net zero CO₂ emissions, both direct and indirect, along its entire value chain by 2050. This will entail a reduction in CO₂ emissions of at least 90% in the three scopes by 2050, with additional sequestration projects planned for residual emissions.

Saint-Gobain's commitments to reduce, in absolute terms, by 2030 from 2017 its direct and indirect CO₂ emissions (scopes 1 and 2) by 33% and its scope 3 emissions, mainly linked to purchasing and transport, by 16% by 2030 was already validated in 2020 by the SBTi. The group says it will continue to accelerate its roadmap, notably through improvements in energy efficiency, product weight reduction, increased recycled content and the use of green energies, in order to align its targets with the most demanding trajectory, which limits the rise in temperatures to 1.5°C.

Belgium: Etex’s revenue rose by 16% year-on-year to Euro1.79bn in the first half of 2022 from Euro1.46bn in the same period in 2021 on a like-for-like basis. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) grew by 20% to Euro319m from Euro266m.

Bernard Delvaux, the chief executive officer of Etex said, “In the first half of 2022, like many other industrial players, Etex had to cope with significant raw material and energy price inflation in the context of post-Covid-19 disruptions, volatility and the war between Russia and Ukraine. To face this situation, we had to implement a number of price increases. Our volumes and margins have been impacted, but these measures allowed us to achieve a positive evolution of both top line and bottom line.”

The company’s Building Performance division reported slightly lower gypsum wallboard sales volumes despite delivering a 16% increase in revenue to Euro1.23bn. The group also created an Insulation division in May 2022 following the completion of its acquisition of URSA.

US: Gypsum wallboard producers sold 1.32Bnm² of gypsum wallboard in the first half of 2022, a similar amount to that in the first half of 2021. Total supply of gypsum fell by 2% to 20.3Mt from 20.8Mt. This was due to decline in mined gypsum supplies, although imports rose and synthetic gypsum supply remained the same.

Exports of gypsum wallboard fell slightly year-on-year to 18.6Mm² throughout the second quarter of 2022, up by 10% year-on-year from 16.9Mm². Canada received 95% of US gypsum wallboard exports. The US imported 22.9Mm² of gypsum wallboard from eight countries. The figure corresponds to an increase of 10% year-on-year and 3% quarter-on-quarter. Mexico supplied 91% of US gypsum wallboard imports, followed by Canada with 8%.