All power plants operated by CEZ have already been awarded the EMS international certificate

All the fully operational power plants owned by CEZ are in possession of the international EMS (Environmental Management System) certificate. Today (26.6.2002) CEZ received this certificate from the independent auditing company DET NORSKE VERITAS Certification B.V., the Netherlands, which has been in operation for more than 140 years. This event was the climax of a four-year-plus process of implementing the environmental management systems in CEZ a. s.. Partial success had already been achieved in 2001, when the EMS certificate was awarded to 5 coal-fired power plants and Dukovany Nuclear Power Plant. The Temelin Nuclear Power Plant is to be certified after the completion of the trial operation cycle.

The system of managing and operating all the fully operational power plants of CEZ, a. s., has thus reached compliance with the ISO 14001 Standard.

EMS and the subsequent certification are aimed at implementing those measures in the power plants which would enable continuous assessment of the environmental impact of these plants,? said Tamara Spilkova, the head of the EMS department in the Section of Traditional Energetics and the leader of the project entitled "Environmental Protection Management?. A concrete benefit of these measures was the reduced environmental impact of the plant upon its immediate surroundings, but also reduced energy consumption and improved production quality. The awarded certificates confirm that the internal processes of the power plants are in full compliance with the ISO 14001 Standard, which provides an internationally recognised yardstick for environmental protection management,? concluded Tamara Spilkova.

The EMS certificate has a bearing on the entire administration of the Traditional Power Plant Section and also on the individual coal-fired power plants Detmarovice, Hodonin, Chvaletice, Ledvice, Melnik, Pocerady, Porici, Prunerov, Tisova and Tusimice, and on the hydro-power plants Lipno, Hnevkovice, Korensko, Orlik, Kamyk, Slapy, Stechovice, Vrane, Mohelno, Dlouhe Strane, Korensko, Zelina and Dalesice. The Dukovany Nuclear Power Plant was also awarded the certificate.

The EMS certificate confirms that the company is really carrying out an environmental protection policy which is underlined by a responsible attitude of the management and of all employees in this particular field. The certification process itself was preceded by a number of activities which had to be performed in the power plants in order to facilitate a successful implementation of EMS. These mainly included the training of top and middle management, the carrying out of an environmental review, the drafting of the company's own environmental policy and preparation of the required controlling documentation, updating of the local operation instructions, emergency plans, the implementation of internal EMS audits, independent verification of the functionality of the system in the power plant and its preparedness for certification.

The functionality of the certification, the reliability of EMS and its compliance with the requirements of the standard will be reviewed by periodical audits and in the following two years also by a so called re-certification audit, which will be carried out in the course of the third year after the initial certification.

The functioning system of the environmental protection management according to the ISO 14001 Standard is currently regarded as one of the essential cornerstones of the prosperity of large industrial enterprises in the European Union as well as in the rest of the world. The CEZ Executive Board decided, as early as in 1997, to introduce this system in all of its organisational units. In the cases of the coal-fired power plants the certification process represents a dignified conclusion to the previous large ecological programme that was carried out between 1992 and 1998; it needed overall investment of almost 559 million CZK and, apart from other things, also included the desulphurisation of all production units.

The implementation of EMS and the acquisition of the certificate is a significant landmark in the period of time characterised by the last stage of preparations of the Czech Republic for an entry into the European Union and the preparation for finalising the privatisation process of the Czech electricity industry. This landmark can therefore be seen as a logical and inevitable continuation of the environmental protection measures the CEZ has implemented over the past years.

Ladislav Kriz, Press Officer

26. 6. 2002