DGAP-News

Aurubis AG: FOCUS Sustainability - Aurubis releases extensive Sustainability Report - Seite 2

All of the company's production sites are successfully executing projects to reduce CO₂. A further step toward preventing the use of fossil fuels is the upcoming trial for utilizing hydrogen in the primary smelter in Hamburg in order to replace natural gas in production. At the Aurubis site in Pirdop, Bulgaria, on the other hand, a 10 MW-peak photovoltaic park will be constructed. According to the current status, this will be the largest of its kind in Bulgaria.

Aurubis' copper cathodes already have a significantly lower CO₂ footprint than the industry average. The company's good performance is also confirmed by the most recent rating of A- issued by the CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project).

"We want to align the aspects of People, Economy, and Environment," explains Roland Harings. "The acquisition and integration of the Belgian-Spanish Metallo Group is an especially successful example in this regard. With two sites integrated into the Aurubis production network - and 540 new colleagues - we can now process larger volumes of recycling materials with low metal contents. This contributes to securing raw materials and the circular economy in Europe! We financed the company acquisition with a sustainable Schuldschein loan that's linked to our ESG performance in the EcoVadis rating. One thing I'd like to emphasize in particular is that we have diligently continued our sustainability activities even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic."

Kirsten Kück, Sustainability Manager at Aurubis, looks back on fiscal year 2019/20 positively: "By joining the Copper Mark in 2020, the new quality seal for the copper sector, Aurubis reached another important milestone in promoting and verifying responsible copper production along the entire value chain. Our plant in Bulgaria is our first primary smelter to start this process, and additional sites will follow in the course of the year."

The past year also clearly showed how important stability and investments in education are. Aurubis continues to emphasize vocational education and training with a sense of purpose and has expanded its apprenticeship capacity. Furthermore, it strengthened its social engagement even during the pandemic in order to provide fast support to partners and projects that needed assistance.