Acron Group invests heavily in environmental protection in its footprint regions each year. The Group’s environmental projects focus on protecting air and water resources and reducing the impact of production waste. In 2020, Acron Group invested RUB 338 million in environmental protection measures, up 59% year-on-year.
Over the course of 2020, the Group’s chemical enterprises upgraded their main shops to improve the environmental safety of their operations and products.
Chairman of Acron Group’s Board of Directors Alexander Popov named environmental safety a priority in the Group’s ESG strategy. ‘Each year, we upgrade our production facilities, improve production processes, and commission new treatment units. All the Group’s companies monitor emissions on a regular basis. In the reporting year, the Group remained under the permitted values for all indices related to air and water resources protection and waste management’.
In 2020, Acron (Novgorod region) implemented air protection measures and performed technical upgrades at its AN, NPK, and nitric acid units in order to ensure the stable and efficient operation of the production facilities and the gas treatment units and to comply with emission standards.
Dorogobuzh (Smolensk region) adopted measures at its AN and NPK units in order to ensure the stable and efficient operation of the gas treatment units and to comply with emission standards for emission points.
NWPC’s Oleniy Ruchey mine in Murmansk region performed air monitoring and dust suppression within its license areas and irrigated waste dumps and roads in the dry season.
The Group allocated RUB 18 million to reduce emissions.
To protect water resources, Acron implemented measures to ensure stable operations and meet wastewater treatment parameters at its biological treatment plant, as well as at its urea, NPK, and AN units and the water supply and sewage units. In the reporting year, the Company launched a new integrated sewage treatment unit at a total cost of RUB 275 million.
Dorogobuzh’s measures to protect surface waters involved maintaining the trouble-free operation of biological treatment plants and hydraulic structures.
NWPC performed a scheduled repair of its unit for treatment of open-pit and underground mine waters. It also released 15,600 juvenile fish into a tributary of the Umba River in the White Sea basin to conserve aquatic biodiversity.
The Group invested a total of RUB 307 million in reducing water pollution.
The Group implements waste handling measures every year. In 2020, it introduced new technologies to reduce waste generation. It also took steps to comply with the requirements of Russian sanitary and environmental laws when handling waste generated during biological wastewater treatment and the operation of waste disposal facilities.
In the reporting year, Acron Group’s Russian facilities allocated a total of RUB 5 million to reduce waste generation.