Despite being a relatively small industry, lime is one of those usually unseen products that has a profound effect on our daily lives. Lime affects the water you drink, the food you eat, the air you breathe and the home you live in.…not to mention the environment which you are surrounded by. From the moment you brush your teeth in the morning you have already come in contact with a product that has been treated with lime. Its products are as essential in keeping the nation’s infrastructure going as they are to satisfying the needs of a typical family for a new home.

The following sections describe the BLA’s work under the pillar of social progress:

Health and Safety

The combined effect of the BLA’s members in applying themselves to safety improvements has yielded a wealth of innovation from changes to the physical working environment to the development of a health and safety culture. The ultimate aspiration of BLA members is zero incidents. The lime industry acknowledges that this is a particularly hard target but it regards it as its social responsibility to aim for nothing less.

Workforce

The lime industry is also committed to increasing and developing its workforce to levels that are appropriate to employees current positions and future career aspirations. It would like to see a major step forward in the number of health, safety and environmental qualifications as this would assist in the delivery of the sustainable development objectives.

Community

The British Lime Association would like to see limestone/chalk quarrying and related operations become increasingly valued members of the community. Operators continue to work on both transparency and performance in order to build trust within communities and co-exist without friction.

Partnerships

The industry is involved with extraction, manufacturing, recycling and site restoration. As a result, the BLA have a very wide range of stakeholders at European, national, regional and local level, including government departments, agencies, and local communities. Our sustainable development strategy (see Sustainability section) will act as a catalyst to both improve and extend our relationships with stakeholders, which will in turn help to define priorities in terms of sustainability and identify any new partnerships that would be beneficial.