Environment & Health and Safety

Carrying out ideas for a sustainable and environmentally friendly business
Management of its business on an environmentally sustainable basis is not just an ethical commitment for the Prysmian Group but a key factor in its very business competitiveness. Prysmian is constantly seeking not only to develop products with an ever lower environmental impact, but also to implement management and production processes that help improve the environmental sustainability of its business.
In keeping with the contents of the specific policy document, approved and supported by the Chief Executive Officer in 2007, over the course of 2008 Prysmian systematically and continuously pursued all the fundamental activities for managing issues relating to the environment and the health and safety of its employees, introducing a few improvements to the instruments used for fulfilling these tasks. Prysmian has also set up a special committee, the Environmental and Safety Committee (ESC), which acts at management level by deciding objectives for improvement on the basis of information provided by the Health Safety & Environment (HSE) department.

ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 Certifications
In 2008, all of the Prysmian sites already certified ISO 14001 maintained the standards for continued certification. This was officially certified as a result of audits at these sites by the certifying entity. The environmental management ISO 14001 certification,combined with the occupational health and safety OHSAS 18001 certification, result in an integrated environmental/safety system that makes environmental processes more effective while at the same time ensuring a high level of environmental and social responsibility.

Environmental Investments
Environmental investments are fundamental to a management process based on continuous improvement, accident prevention and maintenance of adequate environmental standards. In Prysmian, these investments are the result of:

implementation of the improvement objectives recommended by the SGA in compliance, amongst others, with the requirements of ISO 14001
everyday operational management (eg. maintenance of filtration systems, waste disposal, environmental analysis costs etc)
compliance with new laws or specific requests by the Authorities.

"Environment/Safety" investments amounted to more than Euro 3 million in 2008.

These are some of the more important investments in the past three years:


Operating unit	Investment	Results
Energy cables and systems segment
Plant in Argentina	Purchase of closed ovens for cleaning plastic residue from mechanical parts	Prevention of pollution by substances produced from combustion of plastics in working environment
	Installation of sprinklers	Prevention of fire risk
Plant in France	Installation of recycling systems for process water	Less environmental impact due to large reduction in water consumed for production, basically used to cool semi-finished products after transformation/assembly
Plant in France	Device for recycling SF6	Fewer losses of SF6 (greenhouse gas) used for used for testing compression on power joints
Plant in Turkey	Installation of system for treating used emulsions	Fewer environmental risks from disposing of used emulsions since the waste disposal company receives them already treated and so can more easily eliminate them
Plant in Canada	Improvement of production machinery safety devices	Reduction in risk of workplace accidents

Telecom cables and systems segment
Plant in France	Elimination of dielectric fluids with PCB greater than 50 ppm	Elimination of a harmful substance for the environment and human health (PCB)

Product innovations

Prysmian's Research & Development department has studied, developed and created several innovative products and processes, representing progress not only in terms of technology, but also in terms of lower environmental impact than the traditional technological solutions they replace. Some examples are:

"micromodule" telecom cables, using a smaller quantity of materials. The total weight of the micromodule is 110 kg per kilometre, compared with 190 kg using the established technical solution; the environmental benefits lie in the smaller quantity of raw materials, and therefore the lower environmental impact needed to produce these cables;
medium voltage power cables with a thinner insulating PRODUCT INNOVATION layer. Once again, the environmental benefit, relative to traditional solutions, lies in the smaller quantity of material used to produce the cable;
P-Laser medium voltage power cable, insulated with recyclable thermoplastic materials. The cable is currently at an advanced stage of experimentation for production on an industrial scale;
elimination of lead compounds in low voltage cables;
extruded cables for transporting direct electrical current, the environmental benefit lying in the fact that the insulating layer comprises polymer-based mixes, rather than liquid oil like in previous technical solutions.