Orissa Diary reported that Vedanta Aluminum Limited became the first Mining & Metal Industry in the country to get accreditation for its Energy Management System for ISO 50001:2011 from the British Standards Institution for efficiently managing the existing natural resources and mitigating the impact of climate change at its Lanjigarh Unit in Orissa.
ISO 50001:2011, the international standard on energy management, seeks to drive the attention of Industrial houses to lay greater emphasis and focus on augmenting their existing energy efficiency. In other words, it is a carefully drafted and systematically presented framework for entwining energy efficiency into management practices so that the existing energy consuming assets can be used in a better manner which will ultimately help in reducing levels of Green House Gas emission.
Dr Mukesh Kumar president & COO of VAL Lanjigarh said that “With the obtaining of the ISO 50001:2011, VAL aims to minimize energy consumption to a greater level. The accreditation for ISO 50001 also reflects VAL's determined attempt in energy saving green practices. VAL is committed for overall area development & Environment protection. The Lanjigarh Plant is the only Alumina Refinery in the country having Zero discharge system and aiming to become the First Alumina Refinery in the world by developing Zero Waste road Map. It has already started recovery of valuable Vanadium from waste which is helping in reducing import of vanadium sludge.”
After attaining of the ISO 50001 certification, VAL, Lanjigarh has adhered to a framework of stringent energy conservation and efficient natural resource usage policy which requires it to align its operations to four aspects affecting energy management such as; (a) Mitigation of Climate change, (b) World class Energy Performance, (c) Support BEE, Ministry of Power, Govt. of India and (d) Energy efficient procurement. Now its system has been certified as per ISO 50001:2011.
Apart from the recent certification, VAL Lanjigarh’s environmental concerns are reflective from the constitution of a core EMS team which is primarily responsible for drafting the System Based Energy Management. In fact, the company has also trained 25 of its employees on EnMS 16001 and 14 other employees as lead auditors through a reputed external agency.