ANNOUCEMENT

Wienerberger India, recently announced that it has gone a step further in its endeavour to achieve sustainability in production by switching to natural gas from conventional solid fuel for the brick kiln firing process at its factory operations in Kunigal, Karnataka.

Elaborating on this conversion, Monnanda Appaiah, managing director, Wienerberger India, said, “We are extremely delighted to announce the commissioning of natural gas fuel at our Kunigal factory, which was achieved in a short period of time, despite the challenges brought about by the pandemic. This change in technology will almost eliminate the particulate matters emitted from the kiln during the firing process. We are certain that our Kunigal factory emission norms will match world- class norms in emission and would be substantially better than the emission norms laid out as per the Indian environmental standards. Apart from the positive contribution to the environment, health and safety of our employees and the communities in the vicinity, we expect our product quality to also improve considerably with this switch over. We believe that the timing is just right for us to further the Wienerberger global Sustainability Strategy 2020+.”

Wienerberger AG is consistently pursuing projects that involve converting to low- emission energy sources wherever possible. In 2020, the target has been for the production process at India to be converted from coal to natural gas in line with Wienerberger’s corporate philosophy of providing sustainable solutions to all stakeholders.

The key benefits of the newer firing technology for its brick kiln firing ( gas firing) at Wienerberger’s production facility in Kunigal are: Higher fuel efficiency, reducing carbon monoxide emission by 75%; Reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 40%; Zero particulate matter emission during firing process; Consistent and higher quality of the fired bricks.