Porsche 2004 Annual Report Download - page 79

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Porsche’s central heating plant in Zuffenhausen is also covered by
emission rights trading law. To implement this law, the specific ‘green-
house gas emissions’ were determined and a clear basic picture of
the emissions situation obtained. These data were checked and
verified by a specifically accredited expert. A monitoring system in
accordance with EU requirements is currently being built up; it will
be used for monitoring purposes and for the annual reports to be
submitted to the authorities.
Environmental Protection at Other Locations
Since December 2004 an environmental management system in
accordance with international standard ISO 14001 has been built up
in Weissach. Initial certification took place successfully in June 2005.
This confirms that at our Development Center the environmental as-
pects of vehicle development work, including operation of the work-
shops, test rigs and other plant, have been taken into consideration
and that they comply with ISO 14001. It is worth noting that thanks to
the exceptional commitment of the staff, the environmental manage-
ment system was realized according to an ambitious time schedule.
Considerable investments in environmental protection were also made
in Weissach in the past fiscal year, including the erection of a new
store for special waste material, a store for hazardous materials and
a new vehicle filling station.
In Ludwigsburg, Porsche’s unified waste handling concept has proved
successful. With the aid of the new “Active for the Environment” infor-
mation panels, staff are able to allocate waste material quickly to the
correct categories and thus render its disposal more efficient.
Porsche Leipzig GmbH was successfully certified according to
ISO 14001 in June 2005. Considerable investments were devoted to
improving environmental protection standards, for example the new
washing and leak testing booth that is used to check the completed
vehicles for leaks, and the new waste material facility in the Customer
Center. One of the objectives of the company’s environmental pro-
tection activities in Leipzig is to maintain the ecological value of the
site, with its existing flora and fauna, on a long-term basis. Estab-
lishing herds of aurochs and wild horses was an important element in
a comprehensive scheme to conserve the countryside. Considerable
numbers of rabbits, foxes and deer are also to be seen, and bats
benefit from the high density of insect life on this biotope.
Environmental Protection Costs
Companies do not find it easy to determine the precise value of all
their investments and expenditure on environmental protection, since
these are normally closely linked with other activities. Nor are there
any international standards covering the determination of environ-
mental protection costs; the statistical offices in the Federal states
of Germany call for the costs of certain environmental protection
activities to be defined. Porsche none the less attempts to quantify
these expenditures as accurately as possible. They include the cost
of waste material handling, water protection, noise reduction, clean
air precautions, nature conservation, care of the countryside and the
avoidance of soil contamination. For these areas, which can normally
be allocated to the vehicle production process, 22.5 million Euro
were spent in the 2004/05 fiscal year, distinctly more than in the
preceding year.
A much higher proportion of the costs incurred for environmental pro-
tection are incurred, however, in vehicle development. Increasingly
stringent exhaust emission legislation, for example the introduction
of the EURO 4 limits in January 2005, has necessitated considerable
development expenditure. It is therefore hardly surprising to discover
that of the 1.4 percent of Group turnover that was devoted to environ-
mental protection, by far the largest proportion was spent on product-
related environmental protection work in Development.