OREANDA-NEWS. A meeting of the Gazprom Coordinating Committee for Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency took place at the Gazprom headquarters under the chairmanship of Vitaly Markelov, Deputy Chairman of the Company's Management Committee – Head of the Coordinating Committee. Taking part in the meeting were heads of the Company’s structural units and subsidiaries.

The meeting summed up Gazprom’s environmental activities in 2014. It was stressed that Gazprom proceeded with its consistent efforts aimed at mitigating the environmental impact. It resulted, inter alia, in 9.1 per cent reduction of air emissions and 9 per cent greenhouse emissions versus 2013.

Like in previous years, the Company was gradually cutting down the use of energy resources for its own needs. The bulk of energy savings was achieved due to updating gas production and transmission capacities as well as introducing energy saving technologies. As a result, 2.51 million tons of fuel equivalent was saved in 2014, including over 2 billion cubic meters of natural gas, 254.6 million kWh of electricity; 237.2 thousand Gcal of heat. The total cost of saved resources at 2014 values equaled RUB 7.14 billion.

It was pointed out that promoting wider use of natural gas as a vehicle fuel was a crucial part of Gazprom’s activity. In 2014 the Company was actively preparing new NGV facilities for construction: FEED operations were completed for 21 CNG filling stations in 13 Russian regions.

The Company continued converting its own vehicle fleet to natural gas: in 2014 Gazprom’s subsidiaries purchased 1,674 units of NGV equipment. As a result, the total number of gas-powered vehicles in the Group’s vehicle fleet increased to 6,522.

The meeting noted that in 2014 Gazprom’s Environmental Management System had passed recertification for compliance with the ISO 14001:2004 international standard.

The meeting participants summed up the results of the Year of Environmental Awareness held by Gazprom in 2014. The Company arranged over 20 thousand events in 3.5 thousand urban and rural areas across Russia and Belarus, in which 362.7 thousand people took part, including employees of Gazprom and its subsidiary companies as well as students and schoolchildren. About 62 thousand of them attended environmental courses and seminars. Within the Year of Environmental Awareness the Company cleared 11.6 thousand hectares of parks, public gardens and protected areas; planted over 172 thousand trees and bushes; rehabilitated more than 480 water reservoirs.