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message from alan cransberg, managing director,
alcoa of australia

Australia and Alcoa are a critical part of the global aluminium industry and it's interesting times ahead. We are in an era of great challenge and great opportunity. The current gas supply issue in WA is affecting us all and reinforces the need for domestic energy security for all industry. We have just announced our joint venture with Latent Petroleum to explore for tight gas in the Perth basin - one aspect of our commitment to finding workable solutions to the energy challenge.

Energy is a key word in the climate change debate of course. I have been vocal in my support for an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), and in the need to ensure it supports Australian industry. Rendering our operations uncompetitive is detrimental to the economy, to jobs, and to the environment. Did you know we use half the energy of Chinese refineries to produce alumina?

This month I joined other industry leaders for a panel discussion on energy management at the Federal Government's Energy Efficiency Opportunities (EEO) Workshop. As a major energy user, the aluminium industry has long recognised that energy efficiency and sustainability go hand-in-hand and in fact Alcoa was one of the early leaders on climate change.

In 1998, Alcoa set itself a voluntary target to cut our global direct greenhouse emissions by 25% by 2010 compared to 1990. We achieved this in 2003 and have in fact reduced emissions by 33% from a 1990 baseline.

Please read on for more detail on Alcoa's performance and activities.

part of our everyday lives

Aluminium and transport
Did you know that 65 per cent of the largest commercial plane in the world, the Airbus A380, is made of aluminium? Aluminium keeps planes light, which means less fuel is used, fewer emissions are released into the atmosphere and lower ticket prices are experienced by travellers.

our business

Alcoa takes business to regional Australia
Alcoa of Australia has affirmed regional WA as a global 'centre of excellence' for the alumina industry, following the opening of its state-of-the-art Peel Regional Office.

The office, built to the highest environmental standards, is a demonstration of Alcoa’s ongoing commitment to the region.

part of the solution

Cutting down on water
We know we use a lot of water, and we are setting tough targets to reduce our water use.

As part of Alcoa's Water Conser-vation Strategy in Australia, we are focused on reduc-ing our overall consumption of water, increasing water use effi-ciency and re-placing high grade water sources, which are used by the broader com-munity, with lower grade sources.

partnering stronger communities

Greening Australia, Bluearth and Alcoa
Partnering stronger communities is a fundamental value for Alcoa. Recently we partnered with Greening Australia in Victoria to work collaboratively on a new land management project in Geelong, while in WA kids are getting fit for life thanks to our involvement with the Bluearth Institute.

our people

Leading the way in employee volunteering
New stats show time contributed to the community through Alcoa employee volunteering was equivalent to a total of eight years in 2007.

Working on 639 local projects across Australia, a total of 1,215 Alcoa employees nationwide volunteered 71,147 hours of their time over the course of 2007.



	If you would like to learn more about Alcoa’s operations and contribution to the Australian community, visit www.alcoa.com.au. To unsubscribe to this publication, click here.