Environmental protection and management in Olen is a continuous dynamism, an everlasting pursuit of getting better and trying to have the smallest impact on the environment.

At the Olen site in 1998, the Contirod® production plant was the first department in the Group to be rewarded with the ISO 14001 certificate. After the success of this pilot project, the environmental management systems of all departments in Olen were audited and certified for ISO 14001.

As Aurubis in Olen uses mainly pyrometallurgical processes, controlling air emissions is regarded as the biggest issue. Additionally, emissions to water have become more and more relevant over recent years.

One of the main projects in the last few years was the overhaul of the waste heat recovery boiler at the Contimelt installation. Energy efficiency significantly increased as a result of this more than € 2 million project by reusing waste heat as far as possible for steam production, for example. Fugitive emissions are also now captured and fed into an off-gas treatment installation, which substantially improved the emission situation as well.

The reduction of volatile organic compounds (VOC) is another important project. A number of measures have been implemented to reduce the use of alcohol in the rolling mill of the Contirod® plant: the alcohol quantity utilised was decreased by nearly 90 % as compared with 1999 due to partial substitution and elimination, among other factors.

In April 2009 the issue of a new environmental permit for all environmental activities at the Olen site, which is valid for 20 years, was an important milestone for Aurubis Belgium.