“Made LafargeHolcim more sustainable and better equipped for the future”
Rolf Soiron stepped down as Chairman of the Foundation after 15 years of commitment
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Farewell for Rolf Soiron, founding Chairman of the LafargeHolcim Foundation
Review of 15 years as Chairman of the Board of the LafargeHolcim Foundation: Rolf Soiron addressed the guests including the members of the global LafargeHolcim Awards Jury and of the Roundtable for Sustainable Construction, as well as former members of the Board of the Foundation and the current top management of LafargeHolcim.
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Farewell for Rolf Soiron, founding Chairman of the LafargeHolcim Foundation
The LafargeHolcim Foundation matured equally well as the vintage bottle of Schnapps from the premises of the first cement plant of the LafargeHolcim Group in Switzerland: Thomas Schmidheiny thanking Rolf Soiron for chairing the Foundation since its inception 15 years ago.
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Farewell for Rolf Soiron, founding Chairman of the LafargeHolcim Foundation
Former members of the Board of the Foundation Alexander Biner, Partner at MS Management Service (left), and Urs Bieri, former Member of the Executive Committee of Holcim, with Rolf Soiron, founding Chairman of the LafargeHolcim Foundation.
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Farewell for Rolf Soiron, founding Chairman of the LafargeHolcim Foundation
Markus Ackerman, former member of the Board of the Foundation (left) with Thomas Schmidheiny, member of the Board of LafargeHolcim. In the background: Jan Jenisch, CEO LafargeHolcim and member of the Board of the Foundation (left), and Beat Hess, Chairman of LafargeHolcim.
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Farewell for Rolf Soiron, founding Chairman of the LafargeHolcim Foundation
From left: Stuart Smith and Alejandro Aravena, members of the Board of the Foundation; and Philippe Block and Dirk Hebel, members of the Academic Committee of the Foundation; and Harry Gugger, member of the Board of the LafargeHolcim Foundation.
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Farewell for Rolf Soiron, founding Chairman of the LafargeHolcim Foundation
From right: Xuemei Bai, Professor of Urban Environment & Human Ecology, Australian National University in Canberra; Vivian Loftness, Professor of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA; and Kathrin Rüegger, Events Coordinator of the Foundation.
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Farewell for Rolf Soiron, founding Chairman of the LafargeHolcim Foundation
From left: Xuemei Bai, Professor of Urban Environment & Human Ecology, Australian National University in Canberra; Vivian Loftness, Professor of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA; Philippe Block and Dirk Hebel, members of the Academic Committee of the Foundation.
“Rolf Soiron gave the Foundation the face of credibility it needed, especially in its early years,” said Thomas Schmidheiny, member of the Board of Directors of LafargeHolcim, at the farewell dinner for the Chairman of the LafargeHolcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction since its inception 2003.
Last updated: March 09, 2018 Zurich, Switzerland
“Rolf Soiron gave the Foundation the face of credibility it needed, especially in its early years,” said Thomas Schmidheiny, member of the Board of Directors of LafargeHolcim, at the farewell dinner for the Chairman of the LafargeHolcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction since its inception 2003.
Thomas Schmidheiny explained that the Foundation had been created with the conviction that LafargeHolcim must be permanently committed to decent living standards around the world. “Our industry has a very long-term vision, we extract and process materials to build with, so we think in terms of decades,” said Schmidheiny: “We are not indifferent to how societies develop.”
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As former Chair of the Board of Directors of Holcim and at the same time Chairman of the Board of the Foundation, Rolf Soiron built a link between the two offices. According to Schmidheiny this was “a stroke of good fortune – both for the Foundation and for the Group.” The personal commitment of the Chairman underscored the importance of the Foundation for the Group, spurred strong involvement of the operational companies round the world and led to the Foundation achieving global significance.
“On the other hand, Rolf Soiron injected into our Group the values that the Foundation established and developed. This has helped to make LafargeHolcim more sustainable and better equipped for the future,” said Thomas Schmidheiny and presented Rolf Soiron with a special globe that displays many of the personalities he encountered during his activities as Chairman of the Board of the Foundation.
Further reading
Organization
LafargeHolcim Foundation under new helm
Zurich, Switzerland