Alcoa is a company that deals in production of steel and aluminum products and is located around the globe aluminum production involves mining and processing of bauxite ore and derives its aluminum from it.Aluminum industries contribute to environmental degradation in that secondary scrap metals produce articulates of HCL/Chlorine gases which are responsible for ozone depletion as well as the physical and natural resources in all stages of its processes.
(Amazon Chemical society, 1967)DiscussionAluminum in involves use of large amounts of energy and can pollute the air, surface and even ground water sources with silicon, iron, caustics (EPA 1995).Smelting on the other hand pollutes the air with production of carbon dioxide, fluorine among other gases.Before modern technology, Alcoa used to recycle all the fluorine and aluminum smelting gases that it produced in the production process. With the approval of the environmental policy in 1975,Alcoa committed itself to operate within all environmental conservation laws and permits world wide (Yakob,1999 ).These bound Alcoa to support proper use of natural resources, to support sustainable development, practice sound environmental management, support environmental management drives, and give an annual report on its investments to environmental aspect.Since 1990 Alcoa has invested between 8 to 10 per cent of its capital on health and environment related matters.
Alcoa checks its standards against issues as, ozone layer depleting substances, fuel burning equipment, gasoline dispensing substances, conforming to air emission standard among many.In addition, Alcoa carries out an environmental impact analysis of the surrounding environment and gives annual reports on areas that require improvement. Alcoa employees have access to the state of the art technology o environmental issues through Alcoa’s joint venture with Microsoft and Hewlett Packard to create its own information superhighway connecting more than 15000 computers in Alcoa’s international network (Haapaniemi, 1996).ConclusionQuestions have been raised though concerning environmental conservation and industrial performance. Environmental conservation raises the production costs and hence leading to lower profits and thus an industry is unable to compete effectively in the market (Yakob, 1999) otherwise environmental impact regulation would result to a minimal effect in the production costs.
