The minister for economic affairs of the German state of Northrhine-Westphalia, Garrelt Duin, handed over the "Best Practice Award 2016" at an event in Essen.

The company, based in Neuss close to Düsseldorf, installed new furnaces with innovative technologies, saving around 8,300 metric tons of CO2 per year. This value corresponds to almost 3,000 flights from Düsseldorf to New York.

"The winning companies show that resource and energy efficiency in non-ferrous metal industry are taken very seriously," said Economy Minister Garrelt Duin in his speech. "They deliver new knowledge and technology-based responses to climate protection and are a strong signal for Northrhine-Westphalia as a leading place for non-ferrous metals industry."

Duin underlined the relevance of the metals industry: “You deliver an important contribution to our German wealth. This won't work without further progress in energy efficiency. That´s why advances like those of today´s awardees are so important.”

Metals pro Climate Chairman Roland Leder said that the initiative was about sustainable CO2 savings thanks to higher efficiency. "Energy and resource efficiency is a core competence of the non-ferrous metals industry, which is clearly shown by the best practice example of the winner," said Leder.

The "Best Practice Award" is a new trophy, presented by the corporate initiative Metals pro Climate in three categories. For that, the ÖKOTEC Energy Management GmbH had examined all best practice examples of the involved companies and, based on demanding criteria, identified the best.

Alunorf Managing Director Thomas Geupel was thankful for the recognition to the lauded project, notably praising the “good cooperation with RWTH Aachen Technical University, furnace builder Otto Juncker and our engineers at Alunorf”.

For its novel method of interim annealing of hot rolled coils, Alunorf in 2014 also won the Energy Efficiency Award of the dena – German Energy Efficiency Agency, and the Energy Award of the German Energy Academy.