Could you tell us about Brunner Mond’s sustainability endeavours relating to the environment?
The ‘licence to operate’ is a key issue for all manufacturing businesses in Europe, not just environmentally, but also because of increasing health and safety regulations as well as the perceptions of the general public about the standards that industry should deliver to the communities in which it operates. These are non-negotiable topics in general, and the discussions with the regulators have to be aimed at getting pragmatic solutions. We have therefore been at the forefront of improving standards on environmental safety and quality management to maintain our licence to operate. We have been very proactive in significantly reducing CO2 emissions from our energy-intensive processes and are developing further energy efficiency measures in anticipation of being fully involved in Phase 3 of the EU emissions trading scheme (ETS) which comes into effect in 2013. We are contributing to the Tata group climate change initiative and have a representative in the team. The challenge will be to
