Technological watch

Inaugural ACC Sustainability Leadership Awards presented at Council’s Annual Meeting

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO (June 4, 2019) – Today, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) recognized four member companies and one external organization for their leadership in developing products and technologies to advance sustainability.

ACC established its Sustainability Leadership Awards program to recognize outstanding member company achievements in three priority areas covered by ACC’s Sustainability Principles:

• Transparency & Collaboration: Products, processes or initiatives that promote safe use of chemicals, informed sustainability decision-making and accelerated innovation;
• Environmental Protection & Circularity: Products, processes or initiatives that address the environmental impacts of company products or operations; and
• Societal Contributions: Products, processes or initiatives that illustrate a commitment to innovating for a sustainable future for society.

ACC also is recognizing one non-member with its “External Collaborator” Award, given to an organization that has collaborated with an ACC member on a project, product or initiative that has made significant contributions to sustainability.

“ACC members are committed to putting the power of chemistry and our industry’s best minds to work to develop new and innovative ways that chemistry can contribute to a sustainable future,” said ACC President and CEO Cal Dooley. “Chemistry plays an integral role in solving our world’s sustainability challenges, and ACC is proud to recognize member companies that are leading the way in advancing safe, innovative, effective and economically viable solutions.”

ACC convened a judging panel made up of external sustainability leaders from the retail, nonprofit and consulting sectors. The judging panel chose winning initiatives based on a range of factors, including the level of innovation the initiative demonstrated, the scope and reach of its impacts and the extent to which it addresses priorities outlined in ACC’s Sustainability Principles and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. ACC received more than 40 applications from more than 30 member companies.

ACC presented Sustainability Leadership Awards to the following companies at its Annual Meeting:

• The “Transparency & Collaboration” Award recipient is FMC Corporation, for its ProductStewardship & Sustainability Assessment (PSSA) Tool. FMC developed the tool to help assess and determine the sustainability of its active ingredients and products, from initial concept through each stage of development.
   
  The PSSA compares an active ingredient or formulated product to a benchmark to determine a “sustainability matrix value,” based on stewardship and sustainability criteria that consider product hazards, environmental and human exposure, and the overall life cycle of the product. This tool, which is scalable and replicable by other companies, enables stakeholders to understand FMC’s product ingredients and their sustainability impacts. It has helped FMC make significant progress toward its goal of dedicating 80 percent of its research and development budget to sustainably advantaged products by 2020.

• In the “Environmental Protection &Circularity” category, there are two award recipients. ACC is recognizing Braskem for its Commitment toCircular Economy. In 2018, Braskem America launched a nine-year sustainability initiative with the Philadelphia Eagles to implement a closed-loop value chain for polypropylene material. The program collected more than 300,000 caps in year one, or more than 2,000 pounds of recycled polypropylene.
  
  Braskem will scale up this program to include additional plastics in year two and onward, and will introduce a new closed loop application each year to use the plastics collected throughout the stadium. Through this collaboration, Braskem is sharing the importance of recycling and the circular economy with around 70,000 Eagles fans at each game, as well as students at 30 Philadelphia schools. This innovative program is serving as a model for engagement with other major sports teams.

• The second award winner in the “Environmental Protection & Circularity” category is SABIC, for its Certified Circular Polymers produced from plastic waste. SABIC is pioneering a process that uses upgraded pyrolysis oil, a feedstock made from low value, mixed plastic waste that would otherwise largely end up landfilled or incinerated, to produce high-quality polymers.
  
  SABIC is the first petrochemical company to implement an investment project for the chemical recycling of challenging mixed plastic waste back to the original polymer, and achieved its “market foundation” milestone, with the production of polyethylene and polypropylene pellets at its facility in Geleen, The Netherlands, in 2019. With upscaled production of polyethylene and polypropylene expected by 2021, SABIC anticipates its Certified Circular Polymers will help create a new value chain, whereby SABIC, its suppliers and customers can work together to upcycle mixed plastic waste back to the original polymer for a range of applications.

• In the “Societal Contributions” category, ACC is recognizing The Chemours Company for Opteon™, the company’s portfolio of hydrofluoro olefin (HFO)-based, low global warming potential refrigerant solutions that deliver performance, safety and environmental sustainability for chillers, commercial refrigeration, air conditioning and heat pumps. Opteon™ YF refrigerant used in automotive air conditioning has a global warming potential that can be 99 percent lower than other refrigerants.
  
  Chemours has estimated that by the end of 2019, the replacement of legacy mobile refrigerants with HFO technology like Opteon™ will have resulted in a reduction of nearly 68 million tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to taking approximately 15 million cars off the road.

• ACC is recognizing The Nature Conservancy with its “External Collaborator” award.Based on the hypothesis that investing in nature will lead to conservation and business benefits, in January 2011, The Nature Conservancy began a ground-breaking model collaboration with Dow to integrate ecosystem services in the business decision-making process. In one of the first of its kind collaborations between a chemical company and environmental group, The Nature Conservancy committed its time, resources and reputation to work closely with Dow.
  
  The collaboration led to Dow’s Valuing Nature goal, part of the company’s 2025 Sustainability Goals. As a result of strong scientific, technical, and on-the-ground advisory assistance from The Nature Conservancy, Dow is on track to achieve its goal of $1 billion in business value by 2025 from projects that are good for business and better for nature.