When Circa was founded in 2006, the company’s aim was to convert non-food cellulose into high-performance, renewable chemicals, at scale — extracting value from waste biomass and addressing a gap in the market for better, more sustainable materials.
Fernando J. Gómez, head of the Chemical and Advanced Materials Industry at the World Economic Forum (WEF), discusses the chemical-industry-related topics that are high on the WEF’s agenda.
In a nutshell, reaching sustainability has become a key aspect for chemical companies and adjacent businesses along the product chain with a high entry hurdle for everyone.
Europe wants to become the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050 and decouple its economic growth from the consumption of natural resources – this is what the members of the European Union committed to in the so-called Green Deal in December 2019.
The European Chemical Industry has set out on an ambitious path to become carbon neutral. Germany, as one of the major chemical manufacturing nations, has committed to achieve this goal by 2050.
Besides digitalization, sustainability and the circular economy are the key issues facing the chemical industry at present and in the coming decades.
Spanish chemical company Ercros has launched a three-year strategic plan to improve its sustainability. The plan, which incorporates 20 projects, is based on three dimensions: diversification, digitalization and decarbonization.
LyondellBasell has pledged to produce and market 2 million t/y of recycled and renewable-based polymers by 2030 as part of a range of new sustainability targets.
Chemicals are a critical, but often overlooked, factor of success for a circular economy. 96% of all products on European markets, from food to medical treatments, from buildings to consumer electronics, rely on chemicals, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise. But what does circularity mean for the future of the chemicals industry? Should it embrace circular systems or resist them?
Designed for their performance and durability, synthetic plastics have become indispensable as “materials of every-day use”. However, their characteristic long life span and indiscriminate disposal have led to an acute problem of plastic pollution. In order to address this issue, the European Union is not only trying to adopt a circular system to reuse, repair and recycle plastics (circular economy) but it also aims to produce plastics out of renewable resources (biobased plastics).
“Science to Enable Sustainable Plastics” was the topic of the 8th Chemical Sciences and Society Symposiums, held from November 10-13, 2019, in London.
Plastics manufacturer Sekisui Chemical and the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ) have formed a joint venture to verify and commercialize combustible waste-to-ethanol technology.
Ineos has joined forces with Plastic Energy to help promote and employ chemical recycling.
