Location: Canada
Year founded: 1902
Revenue: $23.6 Billion
Employees: 68,000
Investing in clean, efficient manufacturing When Alcan took over French rival Pechiney in late 2003, the Montreal-based aluminum maker also landed world-class smelting technology. Because of Pechiney's proprietary methods (and an aggressive push by Alcan to track emissions), the company has been able to reduce its greenhouse-gas output by 25 percent since 1990, while production increased 40 percent. Alcan's latest goal is to install a high-capacity process that increases energy efficiency by as much as 20 percent and lowers emissions. A pilot plant in Quebec is already under construction. "It's inherent to the engineering culture to respond to problems like these," says Alcan's Corey Copeland. "It's what makes engineers tick." --Jia Lynn Yang
