Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, bom dia, senhoras e senhores

Eu estou muito feliz por estar de volta em Porto Feliz. O nome da cidade é traduzido como "HAPPY HAVEN" em inglês e com certeza vem sendo um porto de muita felicidade para LANXESS, para nosso negócio e para mim pessoalmente. É por isso que hoje é a quarta vez que venho aqui nos últimos doze meses. Algumas pessoas dizem que estou passando mais tempo aqui do que na Alemanha.

All of us at LANXESS feel deeply honored to be playing an important role in the life of this remarkable city.
Our goal is to have a long and ever increasing presence here in Porto Feliz – a presence that will be beneficial to our customers, to our employees, and to the whole community.

As you know, many international companies right now are discovering this dynamic country. I am pleased to say that we were ahead of them. LANXESS realized Brazil’s advantages many years ago and in our former structure we have started business here as early as 1921. Our Inorganic Pigments business has been here since 1979.

Much has changed in our industry since we first came to Brazil.  New products and processes have emerged, new trends have developed, and new guidelines for chemical companies have been established.

But the single most important issue affecting the direction of our industry today is sustainability.

That word has a profound meaning – not just for our business, but for all of us everywhere.  It means to endure, to nourish, and, most importantly, to be responsible for three things: our shared social, economic and environmental future.

Our goal at LANXESS is to be a role model of sustainability – in all three of these senses.

The cogeneration facility that we are launching today here at Porto Feliz is dramatic proof that we are not just talking about environmental sustainability – we are living it.
 
This is not a new trend for us.  It has been an integral part of our business strategy.  Over the years, we have consistently invested in the development of environmentally friendly products and sustainable production processes.

Our inorganic pigments in themselves are non-hazardous. And in the design of our production processes, we have always aimed to minimize our consumption of resources and our emissions into air and water.

Our history goes all the way back to 1926 when we first commenced the commercial production of high quality iron oxide pigments at our facility in Krefeld-Uerdingen.

Please let me give you some examples how we have been operating globally under the guideline of sustainability: Already in the Seventies we optimized our production process, when a substantial part of domestic gas used in our power station was replaced with internally generated hydrogen; thereby we were able to significantly reduce our CO2 emissions.

In the Eighties we developed a special process to filter wastewater in our iron oxide plants.  As a result, we learned to produce a black iron oxide pigment in the recovery plant while purifying the water so completely that we could channel it directly back into river where we had taken it from.

At the end of the Nineties we further reduced CO2 emissions by improving our heat recovery. Now we are able to re-use the excess heat emitted by one of our processes for generating the steam, hot and warm water which is required in other processes.

The decrease of emissions into the air and water has been a continuous process at all of our plants, right up until today.
Here in Porto Feliz we are especially proud of our retro-washing project.  This process for cleaning and reusing process water received the Global HSE Award in 2007 for Health, Safety and Environmental Protection.  As Mr. van Roessel already mentioned, it reduced our consumption of water by 50 percent – equivalent to what would be used by roughly 12,000 households in Porto Feliz.  Costs for wastewater treatment and site operation sank, while productivity and product quality rose.

And also in Jinshan / China, we are progressing with our technical improvements of our yellow production to increase production efficiency to build an even more environmentally friendly production unit there.

It is yet another example of sustainability at work… and of how we differentiate ourselves from our competition.
 
The environment is the best reason why we take pride in our sustainability practices at LANXESS.  Another motivation is that these practices have a very real economic value to you, as our clients.  All of our customer feedback indicates that having environmentally responsible suppliers is extremely important to your business success.

For instance, Marc Pitt, CEO of Sherwin Williams Brazil, who is unfortunately not able to attend the today’s event, has stated:
 
“At Sherwin Williams, green is not just a color, green is a commitment […] We are continuously pursuing relationship with customers and suppliers attracted to implement environmentally responsible practices, procedures and standards in order to enhance product quality and brand image, managing risks and increase innovation.”

There is no doubt for any of us at LANXESS that we as a sustainable supplier serve our customers better by being environmentally responsible. It should indeed be a key focus for everyone in every industry today. I hope that all of you are fully aware of the practices of all of your suppliers – for their standards can and will affect your own business.

Today, I would like to call on you to inspect your other suppliers, especially those supplying inorganic pigments. Some of you are already using surveys or audits to verify your suppliers' environmental efforts; since governmental regulations will tighten in the near future, it is now of even greater importance to assure that the products you use are from compliant and sustainable sources.

The long-term business relations we have with several of you here today have shown that you can trust in LANXESS. All of our customers worldwide can rely on LANXESS’ sustainability standards, and you are all more than welcome to come and audit our facilities to assure yourselves. Like here today.

Besides the environmental benefit we offer to you with our investment in Porto Feliz, there is also an added value in the products themselves being produced here in Brazil.

Bayferrox, Po Xadrez, Baycolor and Ferrit are all proudly “Made in Brazil.”  These brands serve the Brazilian and South American markets, but are also shipped to Mexico, the United States and Canada, and to the world.

We have built on these brands by developing many new prime products, manufactured here and offered to our customers globally.

One more vital reason why we are here in Porto Feliz is the excellent workforce.  Our employees are a great asset, and we invest in them enthusiastically.
Our long-term commitment to sustainability extends to safety standards and to supporting our employees and our communities as a whole.

Training programs have been designed to ensure a well-trained, high-performing workforce.  These are combined with clear incentive and award programs to further motivate our people.  The net effect is that they are superbly qualified to realize and maintain the full potential of the site.

We also strictly enforce state-of-the-art safety standards to guarantee healthy, secure and comfortable working conditions.

Because of these high safety standards, the site was able to celebrate its fifth consecutive accident-free year this past January.

At the same time, our business unit’s production facility in Taopu, China, celebrated its two thousandth day of accident-free work. And at our main site in Uerdingen with more than 600 people working there, producing some 280.000 tons of pigments per year, we diminished the number of accidents from twelve in 2002 to only one in 2009. This is no coincidence.  It is the direct result of our worldwide commitment to safety.

We strongly believe that this approach provides our company with a significant competitive advantage.
It also brings me great satisfaction that we are playing a part in the overall long-term growth and prosperity of Porto Feliz.  LANXESS’ presence can already be seen in the fire station, in the hospital, in the school, and in the rich cultural life of the city.  The social sustainability of this community is as important to us as the other goals I have described. And we will continue our support.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I believe we have demonstrated our determination to be a good corporate citizen in every way.  It is how we reciprocate the great generosity and hospitality this city and Claudio Maffei, the mayor of Porto Feliz and our good friend, have shown to us.
It is also why, in spite of the global economic downturn, we have made this substantial investment into our cogeneration plant.
We are proud to be in Porto Feliz.  Along with Uerdingen in Germany and Jinshan in China, it is one of the three pillars of our LANXESS Inorganic Pigments business.

• ­    We are conscious about the environment,
• ­    we are committed to reliably serving our customers,
• ­    and we protect our employees, as they are our most valuable assets.

Our goal is to create sustainability in our own operations and to be sustainable partners to our customers, and to all the people of Porto Feliz, now and in the future.

Thank you very much. Muito obrigado.