Andritz receives Austrian “Eyesore of the Year” award

(ECA Watch Austria, Vienna, 21 February 2014) On February 20th, the Austrian company Andritz received the “Eyesore of the Year 2013” award for its involvement in three dam projects with tremendous negative ecological and human rights impacts: Xayaburi in Laos, Belo Monte in Brazil as well as Ilisu in Turkey. At the beginning of the week the company signed contracts for yet another disastrous mega-project: a gigantic pulp mill in the middle of Sumatra's rainforests. This new project involvement underlines the reasons for Andritz receiving this award, as it continuously takes part in some of the worst projects in the world... Andritz has received export guarantees from Austria's export credit agency OeKB and when an Asia Pulp & Paper project suffered a financial collapse some years later, Austrian tax payers lost more than EUR40 million... In November 2012 ECA Watch Austria and Friends of the Earth Austria sent a letter to Andritz expressing concern about APP's track record and offered a meeting with NGO representatives from Indonesia. Despite several attempts at contact, Andritz never reacted to this invitation.