OREANDA-NEWS. Metinvest Group's Azovstal and Zaporizhstal won the 12th Ukrainian “Environmental Quality and Safety” competition. The competition has been annually held by Ukrainian NGO “Living Planet” since 2001 with the support of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine.

The objective of the competition is to promote the best achievements of Ukrainian enterprises in implementing cleaner production and environmental management systems.

Azovstal won the “Environmental Initiative” category. The enterprise stopped operating its most environmentally unfriendly production facility, its sinter plant, last year and became the only metallurgical enterprise in Ukraine to stop sinter production in order to significantly decrease emissions. Azovstal's total expenses on environmental protection measures amounted to UAH 130 million in 2012.

Zaporizhstal won the “Development of Cleaner Production Processes” category. The mill launched sinter machine #1 in May 2013 with a new high-tech gas treatment system, which reduces total emissions of dust and gas into the atmosphere by 10%.

The winners were awarded on 15 October at the opening ceremony of Green Mind II, an international forum for sustainable business development.

Oleg Proskuryakov, Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine, gave out the awards.

“It is worth noting what investors like SCM and Metinvest are doing now and how they realize social and environmental responsibility,” said Proskuryakov. “We attended the opening ceremony of the new gas cleaning system at sinter machine #1 at Zaporizhstal and the presentation of a new project at Yenakiieve Steel with the president of Ukraine. If all business takes on the same social and environmental responsibility, environmental problems will be solved not only at the enterprises, but also in cities and regions where large enterprises are located.”

The general director of Yenakiieve Steel gave a presentation at Green Mind on modernizing production and introducing advanced environmental solutions. Representatives of Zaporizhstal talked about investments in improving the environmental impact of production.

“The main focus of the development of EMZ's Technological Strategy is on adhering to strict environmental standards and increasing energy efficiency by saving energy costs by 25%,” said Aleksandr Podkorytov, EMZ's general director. “Alongside the construction of new modern facilities, we closed eight environmentally-unfriendly and energy-consuming types of production. These measures enabled the plant to reduce emissions considerably. We have invested over USD 500 million since 2006 and we are planning to invest the same amount by 2017 so that our enterprise will meet environmental requirements with the best technologies available.”

Green Mind is a business forum focused on the integration of environmental considerations in a practical working environment for the sustainable development of enterprises in various industries. The three day forum hosted over 100 experts from Ukraine, Russia, Europe, and the US, in addition to international intergovernmental and financial organizations.

The event was organized by the Ukrainian NGOs “Living Planet” and “Clean Wave” and supported by the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine.