ASTRIUM AND INFOTERRA RECEIVE ECO-MANAGEMENT AND AUDIT SCHEME AWARD FROM THE MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT.

Astrium Limited and its subsidiary Infoterra, are the first companies in the Aerospace sector to be awarded accreditation by the Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) for their environmental performance over the last year. The award was presented by the Minister for Environment, the Rt. Hon. Michael Meacher MP on 19 November 2002 at the Houses of Parliament.

EMAS is a site-based accreditation scheme designed to assess and commend environmental management systems across Europe. As well as auditing the environmental policy of companies, it also considers a wide range of environmental impacts, such as emissions, waste generation, the use of raw materials and energy consumption. It also incorporates the provision of environmental planning and assesses companies’ environmental performance against a series of long and short-term objectives.

In his opening address Dave Friston, Director, Industrial Policy, Technology, Quality and Procurement, at Astrium said, “We are acutely aware of the impact we have on the environment and are doing all we can to reduce our contribution to the more damaging effects while continuing to use the images and data from our own satellites, processed by our colleagues in Infoterra, to assess performance against environmental policies”.

Protection of the environment is an important element of Astrium’s business principles. To support this the Company has developed an environmental management system (EMS) which is certified to ISO 14001 also with EMAS. This system has been incorporated into all Astrium Ltd company operations to ensure that it:

• Identifies processes and systems to minimise environmental risks Measures and publicly reports its environmental performance annually Encourages sustainable development of its products and processes Promotes the achievement of higher environmental standards by its key suppliers Works with other organisations, local communities and schools supporting environmental projects

In order to achieve EMAS accreditation, Astrium demonstrated that it had improved its environmental performance in the following areas:

• Removal of CFCs and other ozone depleting substances from its processes and sites Significant reduction in the company's chemical inventory and usage, thus reducing the potential for environmental incidents Introduction of energy monitoring databases to focus on reducing energy use and emissions * Review of processes and products to ensure, wherever practical, use of sustainable materials • Recycling of 60% of all waste Reduction of travel between sites achieved by the introduction of video conferencing Reuse of scrap materials by schools for fashion show clothing

EMAS not only covers site environmental matters and policies, it includes the effect and influences that the company’s products may have on the environment. Many of Astrium’s wide range of space products are used to monitor Earth’s environment. Its communications satellites support state-of-the-art two way telecommunications services, internet traffic, television and video conferencing which all help to reduce the requirement to travel. Its Earth observation satellites watch the weather, monitor climate change and, at the same time, give the Earth a complete health check from sea ice state and Ozone depletion to deforestation. Its scientific spacecraft can warn of hazardous solar flares and dangerous near Earth objects while its military systems promote international security and reduce the risk of major conflict.

Infoterra gathers data from space and aerial sources to provide high quality images and detailed map information which are essential for environmental monitoring and the management of natural resources.