On Monday, February 4, 2008, Kia Motors Slovakia officially acquired an international certificate of environmental management system ISO 14001 in the presence of Jaroslav Izak, the Minister of Environment of the Slovak Republic. The certificate was delivered to In-Kyu Bae, the President of Kia Motors Slovakia, by Viktor Saroch, the Director of the certification company Det Norske Veritas.
The environmental responsibility has been the company’s priority since the beginning of the investment. The whole process of implementation of the environmental management system began already in the design phase. The number of studies that had preceded the investment helped with project planning and plant construction in order to minimize the project’s impact on the environment.
During the construction, strict legal and other requirements were met to secure the needed level of protection of the environment. Kia Motors Slovakia and its employees are excited that their effort and hard work during the installation of technologies, test and volume production resulted in a successful implementation of the environmental management system which culminated in obtaining the ISO 14001 certificate.
“When launching the production, we focused our attention on observing all environmental regulations and norms and abiding by all laws. I am very glad we had a chance to prove our commitment to act environmentally friendly and to clearly define it by receiving the internationally renowned environmental certificate ISO 14001, which we had obtained in November - within a year from the launch of volume production,” explained In-Kyu Bae.
The production and non-production technologies, which are used at Kia Motors Slovakia, comply with the norms and regulations. Furthermore, many of them are the best available on the market with a minimum impact on the environment.
To establish and stabilize the clean production systems, the company has laid out a long-term strategy of the environmental policy. Its realization includes execution of the regulation measurements, such as measurement of the air pollutants discharged in ambient air, and introduction of an effective system for monitoring of the underground water with telemetric data transmission. To reduce the water, emission and waste volumes at the paint shop, a process of filtration and thermal separation is used with help of the Regenerative Thermal Oxidizer, which decomposes the volatile organic compounds during the drying process and cauterization of the car bodies. Kia Motors Slovakia also built its own Waste Water Treatment Plant that treats the water discharged from the production halls. For the water treatment, a system of filters and three reverse osmoses are applied. The reverse osmoses used at Kia Motors Slovakia belong to the biggest units to have ever been installed in Slovakia.
Kia in Slovakia is aware of its impact on the environment and its main commitment is thus to further increase the environmental awareness among its employees as well as to improve its green performance.
