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3. 10. 2006

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CEZ publicly pledges to invest permit interest expressly into ecology

The CEZ company entered, through the public declaration, into obligation to invest entire interest gained from selling saved emission permits into measures aimed to decrease emissions of greenhouse gases. Among others, it also pledged to systematically diminish impacts of its business activity on the environment, adopt measures for reducing emissions, support energy savings, and lower the economy demand for energies.

The CEZ Board of directors adopted yesterday a public declaration for the development sustainability and an ecological program financed by savings of emission permits. “We realize our social responsibility for sharing in greenhouse gases and other pollutants emissions. As we are an important player in the economic field, it is our duty to set an example in searching for suitable solutions in the field of the environment protection,” declared Mr. Martin Roman, the CEZ Chairman of the Board of directors and Director General. “We support the idea of international cooperation in resolving global issues, including climate changes, and we are ready to actively participate in this cooperation,” he further pointed out. 

Through the public pledge, the company of CEZ entered in the declaration for the principles of sustainable development and for pervading these principles into all the aspects of the company business activity. “Thereby, we commit ourselves to permanently strive for reducing impacts on the environment and, at the same time, we intend to boost the environment efficiency of our company,” stated Mr. Roman. 

The CEZ declaration also includes the commitment for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. In practice, it means adopting measures for cutting down emissions and boosting environment effectiveness, as well as the determination to continue supporting modern technologies and energy savings. 

The CEZ declaration further embraces supporting of research and development in the field of ecology and implementing renewable energy resources in the everyday practice. “In addition to this, we also want to support education and enlightenment regarding renewable resources,” claimed Mr. Roman. 

From the adopted declaration also ensues the commitment for enhancing to the level of international standards the existing form of presenting information on the CEZ company responsibility. The company of CEZ also undertakes to publish annual profit gained from selling saved permits by the half of the subsequent year, at the latest. 

The first step in fulfilling the declaration’s contents is the concrete engagement of the CEZ company in reinvesting the entire profit gained from selling saved emission permits always and only into measures leading to reducing the intensity of greenhouse gases emissions. These measures primarily cover the development of renewable resources or an active participation in European research and development programs aimed to technologies reducing emissions. At the same time, the means will be invested into implementing the latest technologies ensuring reduction of greenhouse gases emissions in practice. 

“By the end of this year, we will complete an action plan, in which we are going to present concrete drafts for projects and measures. We are working on projects for wind-power plants, development of burning purposefully grown biomass, and other issues,” specified Mr. Roman the company of CEZ plans. The CEZ company also intends to cooperate with the Ministry of the Environment in searching for additional opportunities for fulfilling the declaration’s objectives. 

Even in the past, the company of CEZ became the example of active reducing the environmental stress by realizing a financially demanding ecology program for reducing emissions generated by all its production sources. By the end of 1998, the total investment reached the amount of CZK 45 billion. Additional circa CZK 65 billion were used for related investments connected with the CEZ company ecology program. Thanks to this program, emissions of solids in coal-burning power plants went down by 95%, emissions of carbon dioxide by 77%, emissions of NOx by 50%, and emissions of SO2 by 92%, as compared to the level in the early nineties. The CEZ ecology and development program also included modernization of power plants, enhancing their effectiveness, and also the termination of the operation of some unsuitable sources and their replacement with the production increase of nuclear resources. Thanks to this, the CO2 specific emissions dropped by more than 20% in the previous years.

This year, the CEZ company initiated another wave of modernization its production resources. Primarily, the reconstruction of the Tusimice power plant and the development of a new resource in Ledvice are concerned. The total investments into renewing production resources will exceed CZK 100 billion to be fully financed by the CEZ company. 

The CEZ Group also intensively strives to expand its portfolio of energy renewable resources. For this purpose, it established the CEZ Obnovitelne zdroje subsidiary company that, excluding resources utilizing biomass, covers all the CEZ Group renewable resources. Presently, the CEZ Obnovitelne zdroje company is drafting a number of projects related primarily to the utilization of wind energy. Nevertheless, the CEZ energy production utilizing renewable resources reached 1.45 TWh in 2005, which corresponds to the year-to-year increase by 19%.

Ladislav Kříž
Spokesman of CEZ, a. s