Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) won in one of the country’s most respectable environmental contests called Russia’s One Hundred Best Enterprises/Environment and Environmental Management.

The event was supported by the Soviet of the Federation, the State Duma, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and some environmental NGOs and consisted of two stages. First, the regional authorities selected a few local organizations that did particularly well in terms of conservational activity and environmental management In Chelyabinsk Region, MMK and Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant were selected, with some three hundred enterprises representing all the other Russian regions. Then, a board of experts decided on the winners based on the efficiency of a company’s conservational activity, the way their environmental projects were implemented, and how much was actually invested in ‘getting green’.

MMK spent nearly 2 billion RUR on environmental projects last year, including a billion invested in construction of environmental protection facilities. This has already cut down on the amount of harmful atmospheric emissions by 7,000 tons. In addition, the enterprise had its trash screens renovated and some gas-cleaning units put up.

All this was taken into account by the assessors, who awarded the enterprise with diplomas and medals in the course of the second All-Russian conference on the industrial bionomics and development of economic mechanisms of environmental protection, the company’s press officer reports.