Pakistan Cement Industry on the Safety Bandwagon

To many of the bigger companies in the global cement market, like Seament Holding, safety regulations aren't new news. But believe it or not, many countries haven't had significant regulations put in place until recently. The same way many of these companies are now becoming concerned with the environmental impact of their productions, many are making serious adjustments to their standards for safety now, too.

This is definitely the case in Pakistan. In response to the recent Baldia Town factory fire, many industries are looking at their safety regulations with much more scrutiny. All members of the Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association signed a MOU with Lafarge Pakistan Limited to ensure that all the plants in the country are updated to meet new standards for health and safety.

The industry doesn't have a set of international standards, which is why the APCMA looked to Lafarge for assistance. One of the Lafarge chairmen recognizes the importance, acknowledging that in a cement factory there are over a million moving parts. He argues that it's not necessarily a carelessness or a monetary concern that contributes to the lack of safety standards, but more so a lack of awareness. No business owners would want to put their employees at risk, but it took an event like the factory fire to realize the weight of the importance of these standards.

The CEO of Kohat Cement acknowledges that updating factories to be safer and more health-conscious is definitely costly; however, it's no price to pay in comparison to the lives and materials lost in a serious accident such as the fire. He also notes that most plants have thousands of employees, most of which are at a very low level of education, which could make the risk even greater.

EBM: Leading Bulk Manufacturers in the Green Direction

Lately, the government has been more closely investigating all sorts of industries to crack down on health and safety regulations. Joining these standardizations is limits on emissions and waste. The cultural concern about going green is in full-swing and seems to intensify each day; it's even become a point of marketing, because many consumers won't buy from manufacturers who don't do their part to try to reduce their impact.

Needless to say, industries that manufacture and ship bulk materials, such as building components, are responsible for a great deal of the environmental impact that comes from manufacturing. Therefore, these companies need to be more concerned about their efforts and monitor their numbers more closely than others. After all, it's only a matter of time before environmental guidelines become laws.

EBM, or Environmental Building Materials, is a company that was founded by Mark Bouri and is blazing a trail for other companies in the industry. Playing off of the environmental pitfalls of other companies, this company's focus is to make building materials out of thermal power plant waste. It's an extremely efficient way to reduce waste for one company while reduce consumed materials for production in its own.

The company also specializes in running tests, conducting research, market analysis, certifications, project design, and more, all to contribute toward making the manufacturing industry a less harmful one. Its forward-thinking strategies and proactive research and development efforts set an example for the rest of the industry; it's not only possible to reduce the output of waste, but to turn other waste into product. Hopefully, with this company as a role model, other companies will soon be on board.

Environmentalist and Economist Concerns with Cement Regulations

There has been a lot of talk lately about the environmentally-conscious regulations that have been placed on the U.S. cement industry. It's a well-known fact that cement manufacturers are one of the primary contributors to CO2 emissions due to the nature of the industry, so cement manufacturing and shipping companies worldwide, such as Seament Holding, have been taking strides to try to reduce the impact on the environment and on their workers.

Environmentalists speculate that should they delay the crackdown on the regulations two years, as they have been considering, it could make for increased health risks for cement factory workers. The standards to be set are geared to reduce the amount of mercury, acid gases, particulate matter, and hydrocarbon emissions. These new rules will alter the methods for monitoring these emissions and the thresholds for the amount that can legally be released.

However, if they opt not to wait the two years, lawmakers fear that the American cement industry will, in turn, be crippled: jobs all across the country will be sacrificed due to the high cost of updating the cement plants. To compensate for the cost, manufacturers will begin to outsource jobs, raise their prices, and potentially close down entirely due to insufficient revenue to cover the new overhead.

But the EPA stands firm. According to their statistics, should the new regulations go into effect immediately, some 960 to 2,500 premature deaths will be prevented along with 1,500 non-fatal heart attacks, 17,000 asthma attacks, and a cumulative 130,000 lost work days.

Business Decisions: Planning for Succession

Family businesses come in all shapes and sizes, from mom and pop car dealerships to ones like Seament, a global cement company run by founder Alex Bouri and his kids, Maurice, Mark, and Charles Bouri. Though the way they run their businesses and what they do might vary, there's one thing that all family-operated companies have in common: the decision of succession. If an owner should decide to pass the business on to his or her children, how would they even go about it?

According to FORTUNE, it starts with an exit plan. A business owner has to sit down with a financial advisor and come up with a comprehensive business succession which will detail the business owner's personal and entrepreneurial goals and resources. In this meeting, he or she will take into consideration the financial and legal stipulations of transferring the title of a business.

Advisors stress that business owners give the process due thought. After all, you only get one opportunity to make this move, so you have to be sure that it's exactly what you want.

The biggest decision you'll have to make: do I give the business away, or sell it to my child? The answer must be made based on your level of financial security. If you're secure enough to simply give it, take into consideration your limit of yearly gift tax exemptions. A financial advisor can look into these and see if you're entitled to discounts for giving the business as a gift.

Or, you could make an intra-family sale as a way to sell the business to your son or daughter, which involves selling the company's stock for an installment note in return.

With the proper advisor, the process is an easy one. The decision itself – how to go about it, and if you should allow your kin to take over your business at all – is often the hardest part.