Sustainability

Sustainability is one of the most prominent topics in current public and political discussions. One of the most commonly applied description uses the understanding of sustainable development by the UN with its 17 derived goals. These goals comprise a wide range of social goals as well as environment-related goals.

UN Sustainable development goals — Source: Goals as issued by the UN, picture source Wikipedia.^[1]

While many of these goals may be worthwhile from a political point of view, industrial players often focus on goals directly affecting them or goals in their influence.^[2] In the context of this website, following aspects of sustainability goals are considered:

Affordable and clean energy (UN goal 7): Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all
Responsible consumption and production (UN goal 12): Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Climate action (UN goal 13): Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
Life below water (UN goal 14): Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development
Life on land (UN goal 15): Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

These goals demanding increased environmental sustainability provide some of the biggest challenges for manufacturing industries, particularly for energy- and material-intensive industries like the chemical industry. In fact, this sustainability revolution forces companies to technologically innovate both in processes and in products to keep their license to operate. And, in contrast to the last decades, technology for these innovations is not always readily available or can be developed with little risk.

Several major technological issues exist for the chemical industry related to these sustainability goals:

Energy demand: Reduction of energy input and flexibilization of energy demand
Material input/sourcing: Use of renewable sources and recycling of products
Material usage: Reduction of hazardous materials
Pollution: Reduce pollution by reduction of harmful substances and filtering of output streams
Water usage: Water is used for cooling purposes, as process steam and in many processes directly

While some of these issues like energy demand have always been in focus, some of them like water usage and pollution have been increasingly legally restricted in the last decades, and other like material input and material usage are rather current topics. Furthermore, to reduce the energy demand at a scale that it can be covered from renewable energy sources is in most cases a tremendous challenge, often requiring development of entirely new processes. An additional challenge is added by a rising number of cases of climate change litigation, a considerable risk to energy-intensive industries.^[3]

Sustainability

Footnotes