South & East Asia RBU
In the South & East Asia Regional Business Unit (RBU), we focus in particular on occupational safety, health and environmental protection.
Linde's RBU in South & East Asia comprises, among others, the business activities in Bangladesh, India, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. This list of countries alone shows that there are major differences within this RBU in terms of economic conditions, languages and cultures.
'Malaysian Oxygen Berhad' or MOX, for example, has been the market leader in Malaysia's industrial gases sector for more than 50 years. Its employees are committed not only to commercial success, but also to the advancement of the area's social welfare.
Corporate and Social Responsibility has become increasingly important over the past two years. One reason was the creation of two important prizes for recognition by the Prime Minister: The 'Hibiscus Award' is the first national environmental prize, which is jointly awarded by the Malaysian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and leading non-government organisations in the region.
MOX provides financial support for the prize, which not only rewards environmental leadership, but also encourages environmental awareness among the local industry.
In India, we have taken measures to improve occupational safety. In collaboration with three other gas companies, we expanded the Asian Industrial Gases Association (AIGA) by opening up a new branch office in Mumbai.
AIGA was established in 2002 by the leading industrial gases producers operating in Asia, excluding Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific nations.
It aims to foster the exchange of technical information amongst its members on the safe handling and use of industrial and medical gases, and to liaise closely with national authorities in order to further increase safety standards.
The branch office was first registered in India in February 2007 and officially inaugurated on 18 May 2007. Raj Narayanan from Linde’s management board was elected president of the association at the opening ceremony.
The association endorses AIGA’s values and has committed itself to the mission of improving and expanding safety and technical standards in the gas industry in India.
Our company is also an active steward to the environment, as demonstrated by a number of measures aimed at preserving natural resources in South & East Asia. These include:
Elimination of the combustion of surplus carbon monoxide (CO) that creates carbon dioxide (CO2) in our synthesis plant in Singapore, which saves 300 tonnes of natural gas each year and helps to prevent the production of 280 tonnes of CO2 each year as a result of the natural gas burning.
Replacement of the CO2 re-liquefaction system in use at the Pulogadong storage tanks in Indonesia, which reduced evaporation losses by 3.6 tonnes.
Disposal of catalyser waste, molecular sieves and lubricant oil through authorised specialist partners in Indonesia.
Installation of a recovery plant for gaseous CO2 in our dry ice plant in Nilai, Malaysia.
Improvement of our water treatment facilities in Malaysia to ensure strict compliance with water quality regulations were met.
Creation of an environmental project in the Philippines in 2007 to reduce water consumption at our cooling towers in Apalit.
Tighter protection against spills at our chemical and oil stores, on-site emergency drills, “plant-a-tree” projects, rainwater collection facilities, and regular emissions checks for our fleet in India.
Greater China RBU
Linde is committed to continuously minimising the environmental impact of its business activities in Greater China. Key focus areas here include waste management and the reduction of energy and water consumption at our sites.
In Taiwan, for example, we have established a comprehensive waste management system through which plastic, wood, scrap metal and general waste are collected, separated and recycled. Through this waste management system we collected fifteen tonnes of waste in 2007.
Similar projects on the Chinese mainland have also been implemented. At various locations, waste metal, wood and paper are collected and recycled, in collaboration with contractors and service providers.
At several of our mainland sites, we are also looking at how lubricants are stored and used and how waste chemicals are handled in our laboratories. We will use the results of this environmental impact study to implement long-term chemical waste reduction programmes at these locations.
At several of our sites in China, including Hong Kong and Suzhou, we have launched a campaign to promote energy-conscious habits among our employees, such as switching off lights and air conditioning when offices are not in use.
Furthermore, we have been able to cut energy and water consumption by optimising our production plants and increasing process efficiencies. In 2006, Linde implemented a number of these projects at sites such as Nanjing, Shenzen and Guangzhou.
Lowering fuel consumption and vehicle emissions is also a key objective of our road distribution strategy.
During a roadshow held in the Greater China region, we introduced a route planning software that optimises and improves the coordination of delivery routes – which drastically reduces the mileage and emissions of our trucks.
Eastern Europe & Middle East RBU
Many countries in the Eastern Europe & Middle East region benefit from greater awareness regarding the importance of environmental protection. We help raise the environmental conscience in this region through the combination of various efficiency measures at our sites.
These include equipping our production locations with recycling facilities and improving plant efficiency.
At all of our carbon dioxide (CO2) plants in Turkey, improvements to the purification process during CO2 production allowed us to capture, recycle and reuse 65 percent of the CO2 previously released into the atmosphere during regeneration.
In addition, we retrofitted our Denizli-I CO2 plant in Turkey with the more environmentally friendly raw natural gas desulphurisation unit in place at our new Denizli-II CO2 plant.
By limiting the RPM of our forklift trucks in Turkish gas distribution centres, we succeeded in lowering the speed of these vehicles from 22 km/h to 10 km/h. This move not only reduces fuel consumption, it also lowers emissions and increases safety in the handling of gas cylinders.
We were also involved in an environmental project for a supermarket customer in Poland. This involved replacing 400 kilos of ozone-depleting coolant with 350 kilos of an environmentally sound alternative. This significantly reduced the ecological footprint of the cooling facility.
This project has amazing potential if the customer decides to implement this new solution across its entire supermarket chain.
In Serbia, we are using the methane which is present at a five percent concentration in raw CO2, to generate power at our CO2 plant in Becej. This involves increasing the methane concentration to 37 percent and using it to power a gas plant that generates one megawatt of electrical energy and 1.2 megawatts of thermal energy.
This is sufficient to meet more than one third of our energy requirements at this plant.
At our air separation plant in Nicosia, Cyprus, we improved plant control and reduced electrical energy requirements by five percent. At various sites throughout the region, we source the water we need for our production processes from wells on our own grounds instead of taxing the municipal water service.
We use our own water supply in Turkey (Bursa, Narcosis), the Ukraine (Dnepropetrovsk) and at various sites in Serbia and Croatia, for example.
In addition, we have introduced waste management systems at many locations throughout the region, including Turkey, the Czech Republic and Croatia. We are working with specialised external service providers to collect and recycle waste.
Last but not least, we are working hard to help establish and align safety standards – particularly in emerging economies.
