Sustainability and environmental protection

Protecting the climate and the environment is an important business responsibility. We meet it with many products, processes and services that ensure clean air and clean water and make sparing use of the earth's resources. In the past fiscal year alone we invested over €450 million in environmental protection at our plants. Every euro was well spent.

Responsibility for climate and resources

When it comes to responsibility for the environment and its future, sustainability and resource conservation are top priorities for ThyssenKrupp. We spent €454 million on operating our pollution control facilities in the reporting year. The 11% decline from the prior year was due to the drop in output at many Group companies caused by the recession. All segments achieved a great deal in reducing the use of energy and raw materials in their plants and those of customers. Given the high prices of raw materials and energy, these measures also promoted cost efficiency. At €74 million, spending on environmental protection was 4% higher than a year earlier.

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Climate protection and CO₂ reduction

For ThyssenKrupp, climate protection means above all reducing CO₂. In steel production, this gas arises for example when the oxygen contained in the ore is released in the blast furnace and combines with carbon to form CO₂. Our production processes are already operating at minimum CO₂ levels; further reductions are not possible with the technologies now available. For this reason we have intensified our research and development efforts to explore new paths. Our Steel business is a founding member of the European ULCOS consortium, whose aim is to research and develop new steelmaking methods for the coming decades. In other areas of the Group too we identified and utilized further CO₂ reduction possibilities in the Groupwide project ECI (Energy, Climate and Innovation).

Selected environmental measures

Our efforts to improve air quality at the Duisburg steel site are achieving good success. After we continued the measures begun in 2005 to reduce particulate emissions and replaced blast furnace 4 with the new blast furnace 8, the air quality in the north of the city improved significantly. As a further active contribution to cleaner air in the north of Duisburg we will be retrofitting a sinter belt in the steel mill there with a new fabric filter system; we submitted a planning application for this to the responsible authorities in the reporting year. The new system will filter around 450 tons of particulates out of the air each year.

To provide a long-term disposal option for the wastes produced in the Duisburg steel mill we plan to add a third section to our landfill site in Dinslaken-Wehofen. The project is currently in the approval phase. In building and operating the site we will apply the highest environmental standards. When disposal operations end, the site will be restored and could serve the local population as a recreation area.

The other areas of the Group are also saving energy through a wide range of measures. Following modernization of the air conditioning equipment at our subsidiary Polysius, energy needs for cooling and heating have been halved, thanks also to improved heat reflection of the facade. In a 15 km long compressed air network at Marine Systems a previously separately operated compressor was integrated into the network and a disused tank was reactivated to provide greater storage capacity. The compressed air network was also the reason for a reduction in energy costs at ThyssenKrupp Bilstein: Thanks to an extremely sensitive leak detector, leaks can now be located even under production conditions, avoiding energy-intensive compressed air losses.

To recover machining oils, two new centrifuges separate swarf and oil at ThyssenKrupp Presta. Waste heat from the cupola furnace at ThyssenKrupp Waupaca is now being used for building heating. Depending on the amount of waste heat available, the new system can meet up to 70% of the plant's typical heating needs in winter as well as all its hot water requirements.

We completely rebuilt a converter facility at the Stainless plant in Krefeld. The two new AOD converters with change vessels and auxiliary equipment help reduce air pollution. AOD is the acronym for Argon Oxygen Decarburization. The converter vessels are now enclosed, allowing improved collection of the dusts and gases that occur during charging and tapping.

Environmental protection at ThyssenKrupp Acciai Speciali Terni has been enhanced by new production lines featuring advanced technology and reduced air and water emissions. The new dust collectors and filters are twice as effective as those previously installed. ThyssenKrupp Mexinox further reduced its water consumption by treating and recycling waste water. Shanghai Krupp Stainless received two renowned awards for successful active environmental protection: the Shanghai Advanced Health Business Unit Award and the Shanghai Municipal Water Saving Business Unit Award.

Products for climate and environmental protection

Numerous new materials, components and processes from ThyssenKrupp promote sustainability and climate protection, save energy and so protect the environment. For the new headquarters of Deutsche Börse in Eschborn, for example, we are supplying 15 particularly energy-efficient passenger elevators. Most of the elevators are equipped with regenerative drives: Energy arising as the cabs are slowed is converted into electricity and returned to the power supply. This lowers energy consumption by more than 30% compared with conventional designs and therefore also reduces CO₂ emissions.

We supplied very high-quality stainless steel for one of the biggest biogas plants in the world, being built near Halle in Saxony-Anhalt. The steel is being used in the 16 fermenters in which the biological processes take place.

The Posco group in Seoul, South Korea, is using innovative technology from our plant engineering subsidiary Uhde for the construction of new coke oven batteries. The PROven® system prevents emissions from all oven closures and during charging. Another plant engineering specialist in the Group, ThyssenKrupp Fördertechnik, is to build four fully mobile crusher plants in China. The China Power Investment Group, one of the country's big-five state-owned energy companies, intends to use the plants to modernize coal mining in the Baiyinhua field in Inner Mongolia. The innovative mining systems are expected to reduce annual CO₂ emissions by up to 100,000 tons.

Further information on content in this section

• Commitment
• Speech of Chairman Dr.-Ing. Ekkehard D. Schulz from minute 6:40 (Recording Annual Press Conference on November 27, 2009, German only)