Representatives from 20 international chemical companies, including scientific experts and chief technology officers, attended a collaborative innovation workshop yesterday at BASF in Ludwigshafen at the joint invitation of BASF CEO Martin Brudermueller and the World Economic Forum. With the declared aim of accelerating progress on climate protection, the participants discussed innovative CO₂-reduction technologies as well as new collaborative approaches.

“We all want to further significantly reduce CO₂ emissions at our plants,” said host Dr. Martin Brudermueller, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors and Chief Technology Officer of BASF SE, in his opening remarks. “To do this, we have to develop and implement groundbreaking technologies. This process can be very time-consuming, and we no longer have that much time. The Forum and BASF are hosting the industry to think about how they cooperate and explore ways to accelerate technology development.”

BASF, alongside industry peers Air Liquide, BP, Clariant, Covestro, Dow, Eni, Henkel, Lanxess, Occidental Petroleum, Repsol, DSM, SABIC, Sibur, Solvay, and Total, is partnering with the World Economic Forum in the Collaborative Innovation for Low-Carbon Emitting Technologies in the Chemical Industry initiative led by the WEF’s Chemistry and Advanced Materials Governors Community.

The objective of the initiative is to accelerate the development and upscaling of low carbon emitting technologies for chemical production towards a marked reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the chemical industry. A series of low carbon emitting technologies will be identified and prioritized, and parallel project teams will address technology, regulatory, funding, market and collaboration challenges to accelerate their deployment. The outcome of the initiative is the consolidation of alliances for the collaborative implementation of the prioritized technologies, potentially structured as joint ventures, start-ups, alliances and others.

Climate protection is firmly embedded in BASF’s corporate strategy, too. A central goal of this strategy is to achieve CO₂-neutral growth until 2030. To accomplish this, BASF is continuously optimizing existing processes and gradually replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources. In addition, BASF wants to develop radically new low-emission production processes to reduce CO₂ emissions in a large scale. The company is bundling all this work in an ambitious Carbon Management program, aiming to harmonize climate protection and production growth.