T

he ecological policy of the SUAL group is based on the generally known principles of sustainable development, says Yelena Lebedeva. This is a decisive factor of the company’s aspiration for getting a balanced solution of ecological and social problems along with building up an economically efficient growth of production. In Lebedeva’s words, the Holding’s leadership regards the nature-conservation activity as the most important component of the business and it seeks to reduce the extent of the man-caused impact on the environment at all stages of the production cycle.
The results of this policy are reflected in the figures that Yelena Lebedeva refers to. From 1991 through 2003 the company managed to successfully reduce its smelters’ specific discharges into the atmosphere by 41%, while the production volume increased 22%. Lebedeva stresses that discharges of all harmful substances were cut down. They included dust, solid fluorides, hydrogen fluoride, sulfur dioxide, benz(a)pirene, etc.
There is no doubt that the SUAL group intends to continue its active ecological policy in the future. The department of ecology, labor protection and industrial safety has been established a year ago. As its director Yelena Lebedeva puts it, her tasks are to coordinate ecological activity at the group’s enterprises, develop plans in this sphere, prepare and coordinate investment programs and projects aimed at a constant reduction of the man-caused impact on the environment. The department has already done a lot of work and soon it will start implementing programs of introducing progressive technologies and equipment.
The director of the HSE department draws attention to two specific peculiarities of the SUAL group, Russia’s second largest aluminum company. "First, our business is based on the balanced development of the complete metallurgical cycle. It embraces bauxite extraction, production of alumina and primary aluminum as well as manufacturing of aluminum products. Production capacities are located entirely on the Russian territory", says Lebedeva.
In her opinion, the second peculiarity is the technical condition of the Holding’s enterprises. Its mills were built in the 1940s and 1950s, during the period, when the idea of an accelerated build-up of the country’s aluminum production totally suppressed considerations of the ecological safety. Subsequently, treatment equipment was installed but today it needs a radical modernization. SUAL, of course, not only does reconstruction of production facilities but it also installs gas-cleaning units and constructs other nature-conservation structures.
Noting that problems of ecology are inseparably linked with introduction of advanced technologies, Yelena Lebedeva cites as an example the feasibility study of the program to modernize the SUAL group’s electrolysis production facilities between 2005 and 2009. This program provides for switching over to up-to-date technologies of electrolysis having a significantly smaller impact on the environment. And, at the same time, it includes plans to construct new gas-scrubbers, to continue introducing a circulating water system, to increase the volume of waste recycling. Besides, there will be a stage-by-stage reduction in specific consumption of resources, materials and energy.
As a rule, implementing ecological measures at modern production facilities requires major expenses, says Yelena Lebedeva. For example, the present feasibility study stipulates making investments of $350 million. ‘Ecological investments’ are related to putting funds in production and they are not allocated separately. However, points out Lebedeva, "all technological innovations are usually aimed not only at bringing economic benefits but also at getting a specific nature-conservation effect". In her words, in 2009, when the program of modernization is to be realized, aluminum mills of the SUAL group will have gross volumes of main contaminants’ discharges into the atmosphere reduced by 3 times. The Holding’s largest enterprises will cut down discharges even more: Bogoslovsky Aluminum by 3.5 times, Ural Aluminum by almost 6 times.
Yelena Lebedeva says that among the SUAL group’s ecological projects that have already been implemented the most successful one has been the commissioning of the first-stage structures for cleaning electrolysis gases at Kandalaksha Aluminum (the Murmansk region). "By the volume of eliminated substances this installation of ‘dry’ gas cleaning is the largest one in Russia and other CIS countries as regards electrolyzers with side current lead and self-baking anodes", notes Lebedeva. The second-stage structures for gas cleaning are planned to be put in operation in 2005.
It is also worth mentioning the commissioning of the circulating water system at Irkutsk Aluminum. "We are planning to introduce such systems in the nearest future at other mills of the Holding as well", says the director of the HSE department.
Yelena Lebedeva believes that the problem of wastes is one of the most complicated and urgent in production of aluminum. As far as the SUAL group is concerned, it is actively introducing low-waste technologies, while increasing volumes of waste recycling and processing. Lebedeva illustrates these efforts with the following example: the switchover to baked anodes makes it possible to prevent foaming, while new kinds of waste that emerge when using these anodes can be either processed at the enterprise itself or sold in free market for the same purpose. "Scientific organizations that have ties with us are studying a possibility of recycling wastes into products that can be called for by the market", says Lebedeva.
"Our enterprises are working in different geographic zones and that assumes ecological solutions different by character and degree of complexity", continues Yelena Lebedeva. For example, for mills in the North-West region problems are connected with a shallow deposition of water-bearing horizons. The proximity of these mills to the country’s western border makes it a priority to observe obligations under the Convention on Trans-Boundary Transports that Russia participates in. In the Irkutsk region (Eastern Siberia), where several enterprises of SUAL are operating, there is a special legislation on protecting the environment in the frames of zone around Baikal, the world’s largest natural reservoir with resources of drinking water. It is obvious that the requirements there may become even tougher.
Since 1995 the law "On Ecological Expertise" has been in effect in Russia. According to this law there should be discussions of new projects with the region’s public or public ecological expertise. In Lebedeva’s words, SUAL "is strictly observing these rules irrespective of which region we are implementing our projects".
Comparing Russia’s policy on protecting the environment with policies of other countries, Yelena Lebedeva makes a somewhat unexpected conclusion that the Russian ecological standards are tougher. "The specifics of our environment-protection standards is that they assume the necessity of preserving the environment practically on the level of the natural background", points out Lebedeva. "One can even get an impression that these requirements are based on the ideal scenario, when not only dangerous production but any production whatsoever is non-existent. They are not linked to technologies and, because of it, are hard to be met in most cases". But in practice the problem is solved in a simpler way: adhering to the program of measures for reducing discharges enterprises are working under temporary regulations coordinated with environment-protection agencies.
"The insufficiency as well as the imperfection of the legal base can play a negative role as the question of Russia’s entry in the WTO is being considered. And it can, of course, slow down business growth", the director of the HSE department believes. In Lebedeva’s opinion, it is necessary to make the national ecological law correspond to the international standards. There is a need to establish realistic standards, which would be based on capabilities of existing technologies and expressed in quantities of disposals and discharges of harmful substances per unit of manufactured product. This is the practice that is widely accepted in the world.
At present, there is a federal draft law called "On payment for negative impact on environment", which should establish an economic base for environment-protection regulations. According to Yelena Lebedeva, this draft law provides for an option of keeping environment-protection payments at the disposal of enterprises and using them for implementing specific ecological projects. Yelena Lebedeva believes that this will be a good incentive to reduce a negative impact of the production process on the environment.
At the end of the conversation Yelena Lebedeva says that the SUAL group is playing an active role in the law-making process. The Holding’s representatives together with their colleagues from other metallurgical companies take part in working out normative documents on technical regulations done by different structures including those that embrace Russia’s business community, such as the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation and the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs.