The prize was presented this morning at the Madrid Regional Government headquarters in a ceremony presided over by President Esperanza Aguirre. Dieter Kiefer, Chairman and CEO of Cementos Portland Valderrivas, collected the award.

Cementos Portland Valderrivas' El Alto factory, which spans 60 hectares, has been operational since 1972, when it commenced production of cement using the dry process. El Alto currently has three cement production lines: two grey (each producing 3,500 tonnes/day) and one white (1,000 tonnes/day),making it the largest cement factory in Spain.

El Alto produces nine types of cement: six grey and three white, all of which have N certification from AENOR. Total cement sales in 2009 exceeded 1.4 million tonnes, for which 1.6 million tonnes of limestone and 96,000 tonnes of clay were extracted from the quarry.

The El Alto facilities are monitored by an Environmental Management System which oversees the environmental aspects of production. The factory also has the EMAS seal of environmental excellence and is the only cement plant with an energy management system certified to the UNE-EN 6001 standard.

Cementos Portland Valderrivas is also a pioneer in measuring environmental aspects of its activity. In 2004, it was the first industrial company to provide a real-time environmental metric feed to the Madrid regional government, as President Aguirre noted when presenting the award.