SIJ Acroni wins the Finance Gold Environmental Award

The Gold Environmental Award reaffirms the SIJ Group's position at the very peak of innovation in Slovenia. At yesterday's Environmental Meeting, the SIJ Acroni innovation – non-acidic cleaning of hot and cold rolled steel strips – won Finance magazine's Gold Environmental Award in the Environmentally Friendly Process category. Following the gold award from the Slovenian Chamber of Commerce, the Finance award serves as further recognition of the SIJ Acroni innovation and its versatile value. The process results in better properties of the end product, higher productivity and a significantly reduced environmental footprint. By winning the award, the door is open for SIJ Acroni to take part in the European Business Awards for the Environment (EBAE). When it comes to environmental innovation, in October the SIJ Group also received an international award for the use of waste heat at SIJ Metal Ravne.

The SIJ Acroni innovation – non-acidic cleaning of hot and cold rolled steel strips – won Finance magazine's Gold Environmental Award in the Environmentally Friendly Process category at yesterday's Environmental Meeting. The gold award reaffirms the SIJ Group's position as one of Slovenia's most innovative companies. This is the second award given to the SIJ Group for environmental innovation this year. At the 2016 European Energy Manager (EUREM) meeting in late October, Kristijan Plesnik, manager of the innovation project at SIJ Metal Ravne, received an award in the large company category for the project of using waste heat from the electric arc furnace for district heating in the commercial zone and the town of Ravne na Koroškem. In addition, the innovation won a silver award in the national innovation competition held by the Slovenian Chamber of Commerce (GZS).

SIJ Acroni has previously won the GZS Gold National Innovation Award for non-acidic cleaning of hot and cold rolled steel strips, an innovation that has now also convinced the expert jury in charge of Finance magazine's environmental awards. The other finalists in the Environmentally Friendly Process category were Lek, Kolektor, Fructal and Enicon Adria. Dr. Matevž Fazarinc, Director of Development at SIJ Acroni, said that the innovation is highly versatile: "Non-acidic cleaning of hot and cold rolled steel strips is the perfect win-win innovation. The old process of grinding steel strips has been replaced with innovative non-acidic cleaning, which enables higher productivity, lower operating costs, better properties of the end product, improved safety at work and a significantly reduced environmental footprint." Winning the award makes it possible for SIJ Acroni to take part in the European Business Awards for the Environment (EBEA).


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The SIJ Group is the largest Slovenian vertically integrated metallurgist group, ranked among the top market positions in the European and world niche steel markets. In addition to metallurgy (the basic activity), the SIJ Group is also involved in the food industry (investment in Perutnina Ptuj) and employs a total of some 7,000 people in Slovenia and abroad. In the first half of 2016 the SIJ Group generated EUR 413.9 million in revenues, with an EBITDA of EUR 60.1 million and a net profit of EUR 24.6 million. With products available on over 80 markets worldwide, the SIJ Group is one of Slovenia's largest exporters.

More info:
Dr. Denis Mancevič, Director of Corporate Communications
Email: denis.mancevic@sij.si