During his visit to Ural Federal District, First Deputy Head of Government Dmitry Medvedev chaired a meeting on Chelyabinsk Region’s environmental problems in South Ural State University. The meeting was attended by BOD Chairman of Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) Viktor Rashnikov, who made a report on the local companies’ conservation activity. According to Mr. Rashnikov, Chelyabinsk Region has always been an industrial area whose enterprises affect the environment badly enough. To amend the matters, the enterprises have elaborated and are now using some special environmental programs that are synchronized with the regional government’s programs and have helped these companies to cut down on the amount of harmful atmospheric emissions by 2.5 times between 1990 and 2006. This was largely possible due to upgraded machinery, giving up on environmentally unfriendly technologies and obsolete equipment, and implementation of conservational policies. MMK, for one, managed to halve its atmospheric emissions and to decrease the level of water pollution by three times in 1997-2007, despite the doubling of its production output. The company spent 5 billion RUR on conservational projects over the last five years. In addition, MMK tries to recycle as much waste as it can, and its environmental management system meets all the ISO 14001-2004 requirements. Mr. Rashnikov said environmental awareness and careful use of nature are the indispensable components of any enterprise’s success.