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Using biological technology, a wastewater treatment firm turns profits
while improving the environment By Danco Uzunov
With more than 40 industrial wastewater treatment plants, at least 10 waste and hazardous waste disposal facilities and several soil and groundwater remediation projects in Hungary and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), Korte-Organica is one of the main players in the emerging CEE environmental service market. Its story should convince sceptics that success can be expected when creativity, know-how and devotion combine unite in common cause. Korte-Organica Kft. provides a wide range of cutting-edge technologies and services in a variety of environmental remediation fields throughout this region. Its services include measurement and analyses, planning and design, manufacturing and construction and facility operation. The firm works in such areas as industrial and municipal wastewater treatment, soil and groundwater remediation, lake and reservoir restoration, hazardous waste management, carbon emissions control and more. The company employs 120 people in Hungary and a had turnover of HUF 2 billion (USD 900,000)last year, according to a recent article by MTI, Hungary's national wire service. Capitalising on its successes in Hungary and Poland, it plans to open subsidiaries in Austria, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia. Success didn't come overnight. The Korte-Organica we recognise today took shape in December 2000 with the merger of two independent environmental service companies. Korte Environmental Technologies was founded in 1989, itself the successor of a mobile treatment service company called Chemitech. In 1999, Korte (the Hungarian word for "pear") signed a USD 1.5 million investment deal with the Central and Eastern European Environmental Investment Fund, a leading international venture capital firm founded by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the Swiss government, and a consortium of western financial institutions. The second parent company, Organica Ecotechnologies Ltd., was founded in 1998 with a mission of implementing leading environmental technologies in the rapidly developing CEE environmental protection market. Late that same year, it won an EcoLinks Quick Response Award, to establish a partnership with Living Technologies Inc. and to facilitate its efforts to import a cutting-edge American biotechnology - a trademarked product called Living Machines - to CEE. In 1999 Organica was awarded an EcoLinks Challenge Grant to develop a feasibility study for construction of a Living Machine barge for the Danube. The barge would house a model wastewater treatment apparatus that could demonstrate the use of an effective market-based solution to the problem of water pollution in the Danube, while at the same time raising public awareness about efficient ecological engineering. In early 2000, Organica signed a USD 1.25 million investment deal with the Central and Eastern European Environmental Investment Fund. Business is usually just about money, so a company with a mission other than that is something of an anomaly. Korte-Organica proclaims its aim is to contribute to the process of restoring the balance between humankind and the environment by exploiting business opportunities in the field of pollution reduction. "We believe the private sector is uniquely positioned to lead the way in developing technologies that can improve people's quality of life while also reducing their impact on the environment," said company chairman and CEO Istvan Kenyeres. -
Danco Uzunov is a grants manager |
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