Paving Equipment OEM Makes Green Moves
BY AsphaltPro Staff
While Atlas Copco is an industrial group with compressors, expanders and air treatment systems, construction and mining equipment, power tools and assembly systems, the company is the only one we’ve heard of gearing up for the upcoming Jurassic World movie in this special way. The company helped commemorate the 30th anniversary of the discovery of Atlascopcosaurus in mid-2014.
“Not every company has a dinosaur species named after it,” Sofie Gielen said. She’s the marketing communications director for Atlas Copco. “Three decades later, we’re still extremely proud of the fact that our equipment helped unearth the fossilized skeleton of Atlascopcosaurus so it could be shared with the entire world.”
The dinosaur was an estimated 6.5- to 13-feet long and weighed 276 pounds. The dinosaur belonged to the Hypsilophodontidae family and lived during the early Cretaceous Period. Scientists infer that it was a small, bipedal herbivore that would have foraged for its food and stayed out of the way of larger, carnivorous predators.
Thomas H. Rich, PhD, a paleontologist from the Museum of Victoria, Australia, and Patricia Vickers-Rich from Monash University, Melbourne, discovered Atlascopcosaurus at Dinosaur Cove, a fossil-rich area on the southeast coast of Australia, close to Victoria. During Rich’s first visit to the area in 1980, he and two colleagues revealed fragments of rock-embedded bone. Four years later, a group of hundreds of student volunteers, paleontology scientists and miners began excavations.
The research group’s equipment included Atlas Copco rock drills, pneumatic tools and compressors. The digging teams often worked in dark, narrow tunnels, which at times were muddy and slippery. The excavation site was located next to a steep cliff overlooking the sea, which complicated work even further. The fossils they were after were embedded sand, mud and clay that had been pressed together into hard rock for millions of years. It was slow going, with the teams removing approximately 66 pounds of hard rock for every 2 pounds of dinosaur bone.
Ultimately, the excavation revealed Atlascopcosaurus loadsi. The specific name loadsi refers to Bill Loads, Atlas Copco’s manager in Victoria who made the decision to support the project.
Newsweek Green Rankings also gave the company something to celebrate late in 2014. The corporate environmental standing organization ranked Atlas Copco seventh among the 500 largest publicly traded, global companies by market capitalization. Newsweek Green Rankings uses data from Bloomberg’s Professional® service, which includes sustainability information from more than 5,000 public securities. It also uses information from CDP, an international nonprofit organization that helps companies measure, disclose, manage and share vital environmental information. Newsweek scored qualified companies against eight key performance indicators based on publically available data. Indicators included total energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, water use, waste generation and recycling, reputation and sustainability incentives for senior management.
“We are extremely proud to be recognized by an organization like Newsweek for our commitment to sustainable productivity,” Jim Levitt, president of Atlas Copco North America said. “This top 10 ranking is a reflection of our employees’ dedication to our sustainability initiatives surrounding safety, health and environmental issues.”
Earlier in 2014, Atlas Copco was ranked as one of the most ethical companies by Ethisphere® Institute and was recognized on the Global 100 list as one of the world’s most sustainable companies. Atlas Copco AB is a member of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, the UN Global Compact 100 and the FTSE4Good Index. The company also has been named to Forbes’ 100 Most Innovative Companies list.
“This top 10 ranking is a reflection of our employees’ dedication to our sustainability initiatives surrounding safety, health and environmental issues.”—Jim Levitt
Atlascopcosaurus was discovered in 1984 and named in honor of Atlas Copco’s support of archeological research.