Environmental protection

Concrete objectives

• Continue deploying the 2008-2011 environmental policy
• Maintain ISO 14001 certification for all sites with significant environmental aspects (SEA)
• Conduct 80 environmental reviews
• Using site-risk mapping, broaden the biodiversity component of impact studies (impacts on ecosystems, fauna and flora)
• Continue reducing greenhouse gas emissions, particularly SF₆, N₂O and CO₂, in accordance with the group’s carbon neutrality commitment
• Improve the group’s eco-efficiency and reduce its environmental footprint by concentrating efforts on major contributing factors
• Develop a standard environmental liabilities management plan

Tangible results

Controlling environmental impacts

Monitoring objectives, site by site 

AREVA’s Environment Committee monitors performance by:

• Following the deployment scorecard for AREVA’s environmental policy
• Analyzing entities’ progress charts and action plans for the “environmental protection” component of the AREVA Way continuous improvement initiative
• Analyzing environmental data and indicators from the sustainable development reporting system
• Analyzing topical environmental reports (more than 120 of which were conducted at SEA sites in 2008)

A broad certification initiative

At the end of 2008, 79% of SEA sites were ISO 14001 certified. Among these, 100% of AREVA’s nuclear and high- and low-threshold Seveso sites were ISO 14001 certified. In the coming years, environmental certification initiatives will be expanded to include contracting operations, the nuclear engineering business and major construction sites.

Improving environmental performance

A very positive general record

The group continues to make progress on its environmental footprint.

Significant reductions since 2004

• 50% drop in water consumption: the closed loop cooling system at the Chemistry business unit’s Comurhex Malvési site, which started up in August 2007, saves approximately 1,353,807 cubic meters of water per year and reduces the site’s water consumption by 83%
• 46% drop in paper consumption: group-wide, paper consumption per employee dropped from 32.5 kilograms in 2004 to 21.5 kilograms in 2008
• 57% drop in greenhouse gas emissions
• 23% drop in energy consumption

Improved conventional waste recycling

The recycling rate rose from:

• 32% in 2004 to 55% in 2008 for hazardous waste
• 44% in 2004 to 74% in 2008 for non-hazardous waste

Overall, this represents a more than 71% improvement in the recycling rate for all conventional waste between 2004 and 2008.

Keeping radiological impacts low

Continuous improvement initiative

The group follows a proactive policy that involves standardizing measurements and continually researching ways to reduce radiological impacts. For example, the impact around the La Hague plant was reduced to 0.01 mSv (millisievert) *, well below the regulatory limit of 1 mSv.

Rigorously managing radioactive waste

Reducing quantity

The main objective is to reduce radioactive waste to the extent possible by applying 3 action principles:

• Reducing waste at source through modified industrial processes
• Removing waste produced using disposal networks that have been approved by authorities
• Optimizing day-to-day implementation processes through zoning and sorting in particular

Managing radioactive waste safely and sustainably

A group directive sets out the shared practices and organizational structure to implement in order to ensure safe and sustainable radioactive waste management. The basic rules of this doctrine include radiological cleanup, strict separation of radioactive and conventional waste, disposal of legacy waste, less storage, waste characterization, and exhaustive inventories.