Sustainable Development

Concept application

Corporate responsibility is inherent to the Company’s business and to its way of making business. It reflects on ethical and responsible attitudes in all its actions, policies, practices and attitudes applicable to all interested populations, internal and external, as well as all of those involved in the process.

Aperam South America also has specific projects for continuous improvement of production processes in order to preserve the environment and natural resources:

• Environmental Management Programs: they ensure the implantation and upgrade of projects and equipment for environmental control.
• The water reuse rate is among the best ones in the Brazilian steel sector, about 95%. As for electricity use, the Company, through its projects to improve energy efficiency, has achieved significant reductions in energy consumption.
• Environmental adequacy of suppliers: the Supplier Qualification Program (PQF) evaluates criteria focused on social responsibility, and as of 2010 companies are also evaluated in relation to environmental preservation actions.
• Preservation of the Company’s land in the urban area of Timóteo.
• Waste management: the goal is to reduce the environmental impact and operating costs. The management is focused on reducing the generation of waste, on promoting its reuse, recycling and trading as well as avoiding the deposition of waste. Nowadays, for every ton of raw steel produced, Aperam South America recycles, either internally or externally, an average of 88% of its waste.
• Monitoring of environmental variables of the Plant: the Company keeps control over emissions of air and water effluents, as well as noise, and over the use of natural resources, in compliance with legal requirements.
• The company’s energy matrix is increasingly based on renewable sources. In 2011, the Company completed the Charcoal Project, responsible for converting Blast Furnace 2, formerly operated using coke, into a charcoal-fueled furnace. The initiative, which also promoted the expansion of eucalyptus forests in Jequitinhonha Valley, enabled to reduce emission of 700 thousand tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
• After the implantation of the gas pipeline in the region where the plant is located, there was substitution of LPG with natural gas in part of the productive process of Timoteo’s plant.
• Aperam South America is a member of the Watershed Committees of Doce and Piracicaba Rivers, and member of the State Council of Water Resources (CERH).

If you want to learn more about the corporate policy on environmental affairs, click here.