Czech Republic’s largest refinery and petrochemical company Unipetrol Group reached the historically highest level of 2.26 billion crowns (84.5 million euros) for environmental protection spending, up to 20 per cent compared to 2018.
Investments went mainly to the construction of the new facilities and renovation of the existing ones, in order to reduce emissions and waste substances and to optimise energy efficiency.
“The money was invested primarily in the projects aiming at improving environmental efficiency, as well as in the operation of our environmental protection facilities, fees, the formation of reserves and remediation work,” said Tomasz Wiatrak, Unipetrol Group’s CEO and Board Chairman.
The most important projects included the operation of an air protection facility, wastewater treatment, waste management and monitoring of discharged substances.
“The amount of these expenditures has more or less stabilised in the past decade,” commented Adam Jarosz, Member of the Board of Directors of the Unipetrol Group responsible for the investments projects, health management and process safety. “However, we are expecting their growth because of the full capacity utilisation of the new equipment in which we have invested in the past two years.”
Pollutant emissions into the environment stabilised over the past five years at the levels determined by substantial green investments made in the previous decade. However, within air protection, there was a significant year-on-year decrease in the values of sulfur dioxide, namely by 23 per cent.
Unipetrol is also actively engaged in environmental care through its peregrine falcon project. It has been working together with the ALKA Wildlife Association since 2011 and they have managed to hatch 30 peregrine chicks on the chimneys in Litvínov, Kralupy, and Neratovice.
