Irizar receives the National Business Award for the Environment
The Spanish Section of the European Environmental Awards, coordinated by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment, via the Biodiversity Foundation, has granted Irizar the National Business Award for the Environment in the product-service category. The award allows Irizar to participate as Spain´s representative in the European finalists phase.
With this recognition we put a value on the steps taken by Irizar in matters involving the environment and electromobility. Especially in the development and manufacture of the 100% electric urban bus, the Irizar i2e, which incorporates technologies that contribute to greater energy efficiency and autonomy of urban buses.
These awards, organised by the European Commission since 1987, reward companies that successfully combine the economic viability of business with environmental protection. Doing so by introducing innovations into management, into processes, products or services offered, fomenting business cooperation or combining business and biodiversity.
In order to opt for these European awards, the businesses must first surpass a national eliminations phase. The process, divided into two stages, guarantees that the winning businesses are, in the European context, the most innovative, the most responsible and with the greatest vision towards the future.
Since 2013, the entity in charge of managing the Spanish section of the National Business Award for the Environment is the Fundación Biodiversidad, and these have been held since 1997 and provide the winning company recognition, both from society and the business world, and from all organisations involved in sustainability.
The Fundación Biodiversidad belongs to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment, and aims to boost economic activity tied to the environment, promoting the sustainability of businesses and fomenting their creation, employment and the consolidation of green businesses.
Irizar´s aim for sustainable development and commitment to the environment goes back to 1998, when the company became the first coach manufacturer to obtain the ISO14001 certification. In 2009 it also is helped by the Stop CO2 Euskadi initiative from the Basque office on Climate Change. It is in 2011 when sustainability gets a new pulse with the start of the electromobility business which is forming a large part of the Group´s future.
The decision to contribute to the improvement of its citizen´s quality of life, making their environment´s more sustainable is one of the future aims of the group, not just to provide complete urban mobility solutions: 100% electric buses, articulated or bi-articulated, and other public electric vehicles, but also for the main necessary infrastructure for charging, traction and the storage of energy.
The buses first 100% electric units with zero emissions were put into circulation in three European cities in 2014. In only 5 years since that decision, the company is prepared to be part of the transformation of cities´ transport systems, where current levels of air contamination make it difficult to reach a citizen´s suitable level of quality
