This autumn, 47 employees of LIBERTY Ostrava lent a hand in eleven socially beneficial organizations from Ostrava where they moved and assembled furniture, repainted and cleaned up rooms, prepared gardens for winter, repaired bicycles, but also produced decorations the sale of which will support the operation of several organizations.  Volunteers from the Ostrava steelworks had worked over 350 hours for the non-profit sector during their working hours in November and December.

Since 2008 the corporate volunteering has been traditionally organized at the steel mill during autumn. It enables LIBERTY Ostrava employees to spend one working day a year helping one of the selected non-profit organizations as per their choice. In this way, the mill helps homes for the elderly, special needs nurseries and schools, asylums, social organizations and sheltered workshops in Ostrava.

This year, LIBERTY Ostrava has helped the Salvation Army, Dlaň životu, Domov Korýtko, Charity house of St. Elizabeth, Charity of St. Alexander, Bikes for Africa, Kindergarten and Special needs elementary school of Diakonie ČCE, Pavučina, Prapos laundry, Work Rehab Center and Society for Early Care.

Adam Frydrych, material operator from LIBERTY Ostrava’s service team said: “It was the first time for me to participate in corporate volunteering and contribute a bit myself to a good cause. I chose “Bikes for Africa” because I am an active cyclist myself. In the morning, my colleague and I were greeted by a pleasant team, and within a few minutes all of us were already dismantling the parts of old bikes, the proceeds of which will be used for delivering bike as important means of transport to children in Africa. I had a good feeling from that day and the work, I was happy to help a good cause. Next year I’ll join again.”

Daniel Ščigel, head of Bikes for Africa central warehouse added: “The employees of LIBERTY Ostrava helped us with recycling of bicycles, especially with the extraction of aluminum. Usually, this raw material remains on the bikes as it is labour intensive and the disassembly is slow and usually not worth it. However, the guys from the steel mill were very efficient and careful, thanks to their craft and skills we managed to do in one shift what usually takes us several times longer. Thank you.”

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Note to the editors:

LIBERTY Ostrava is an integrated steel business with an annual production capacity of approximately 3.6 million tonnes per annum serving construction, machinery and oil & gas industries. The company is a domestic leader in the manufacture of road barriers and tubes. In addition to the Czech market, it supplies its products to more than 40 countries around the world. Together with its subsidiaries in Ostrava, the company has 6,000 employees. The company manufactures its products with a minimum possible environmental footprint.  It is part of LIBERTY Steel Group.

LIBERTY Steel Group plans to invest 8.6 billion of Czech Korunas in the LIBERTY Ostrava GREENSTEEL transformation programme over the course of the next eight years so that is carbon neutral by 2030. The key element of the CN30 programme will be the replacement of the steelwork’s existing four tandem furnaces with two state-of-the-art hybrid electric arc furnaces and the building of a new power line. The new furnaces, for which the contracts were signed at the beginning of July, will be delivered by Danieli, a leading global manufacturer of plant and machinery. At the same signing ceremony, LIBERTY Ostrava signed a Declaration of Cooperation with ČEZ ESCO to identify and develop renewable energy and hydrogen technologies and announced the launch of the GFG Foundation in the Czech Republic.

In addition to the modernisation of the steel shop, the transformation will also include an extensive modernisation of the steel rolling mills, which will improve the quality of steel and expand the product portfolio with high added value products. The investment programme will also see the creation of a renewable power plants for electricity production as well as the development of the GREENSTEEL Academy, which aims to upskill the plant’s current workforce and encourage new people into the industry.

LIBERTY Steel Group is part of the global GFG Alliance owned by Sanjeev Gupta and his family. The GFG Alliance has three independent industrial brands: LIBERTY S teel Group, ALVANCE Aluminum Group and SIMEC Energy Group which share the same values and strive for a long-term sustainable future for industry and society. The GFG Alliance operates in 30 countries, with a total of 35,000 employees and a turnover of over $20 billion.