Environmental Protection and Environmental Footprint in Copper Production

Dr. Karin Hinrichs-Petersen, Daniela Cholakova, Dr. Jörn Mühlenfeld

Aurubis is the leading integrated copper group and the world’s largest copper recycler. Our core business is the production of marketable copper cathodes from copper concentrates, copper scrap and complex secondary raw materials. They are processed in the Group into continuous cast rod, specialty wire, shapes, rolled products, strip and profiles made of copper and copper alloys. In addition, we produce precious metals such as gold and silver and a range of other products, for example sulfuric acid and iron silicate, as co-products of copper production. Environmental protection has been part of Aurubis’ strategy for many years. At Aurubis, we strive to produce at a very high environmental standard across all production sites and business processes. We are developing innovative and energy-efficient plant technologies in environmental protection which set new benchmarks worldwide and form the basis for establishing best available techniques (BAT) at the European level. We keep the effects on the resources water, air and soil to a minimum. In the spirit of resource protection, nearly all of the raw materials are processed into marketable products, and waste is effectively avoided and recycled if possible. Aurubis is always in open dialogue with authorities and citizens across the Group. For example, we are participating in the three-year testing and development phase of the European Commission’s Environmental Footprint. The method was presented in 2013 and can be divided into two areas requiring different approaches: the Environmental Footprint for Products (Product Environmental Footprint, PEF) and the Environmental Footprint for Organisations (Organisational Environmental Footprint, OEF). In order to make the results of the analyses comparable, products are divided into categories and organisations into sectors.