Technological watch

WASHINGTON (June 2, 2020) – Today, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) recognized with its 2020 Sustainability Leadership Awards four member companies and one external organization that have developed innovative products and technologies that help advance sustainability.

ACC’s Sustainability Leadership Awards honor member companies for their achievements and contributions to sustainability in three priority areas covered by ACC’s Sustainability Principles:

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

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

“The chemical industry plays a critical role in addressing and solving the critical global sustainability challenges being faced by society,” said Chris Jahn, ACC’s President and CEO. “The companies we are honoring today are leading the way, through innovative technologies and initiatives to share information about chemical products transparently, conserve valuable resources, transform discarded plastics into new products and advance solutions to feed a growing global population and products clean, safe drinking water to communities in need.”

ACC recognized the following Sustainability Leadership Award winners at its Virtual Annual Meeting:

• The Transparency and Collaboration award recipient is Afton Chemical Corporation, for its “Improved Transparency for Product Hazard Communication” initiative. To enhance transparency and publicly available information on the products it manufactures, Afton undertook a three-year project to overhaul its hazard communications data and associated database, with an extensive review of all classification, toxicology, ecotoxicology and regulatory information used to support product hazard classifications. Afton reviewed environmental, health and safety information on more than 1,000 chemical substances to identify potential data gaps and releasing confidentiality claims for a number of chemicals.
• In the Environmental Protection and Circularity category, there are two award recipients. ACC recognizes AmSty for its “Regenyx Joint Venture,” a partnership with Agilyx to establish a first-of-its-kind chemical recycling facility in Oregon that converts used polystyrene products back to its original feedstock form, recycled styrene monomer, which can be used for new products, without degradation of quality or value. In 2019, Regenyx converted approximately 800,000 pounds of polystyrene into recycled styrene monomer – equivalent to about 30 million foam cups or 26 million restaurant takeout containers.
• The second award winner in the Environmental Protection & Circularity category is Ashland LLC for “Supporting the Trend toward Plant-Based Foods while Incorporating Circular Economy Practices.” Ashland’s initiative demonstrates a commitment to developing an innovative plant-based, meat-alternative food product to help address global food needs, and a manufacturing process that adapted and implemented creative ways to embrace circular practices to reduce emissions and treat wastewater.
• In the Societal Contributions category, ACC is recognizing Occidental Chemical Corporation for “Solving the Global Water Crisis through Partnership with Water Mission.” OxyChem has partnered with Water Mission, a nonprofit that designs, builds and implements safe water, sanitation and hygiene solutions for people in developing countries and disaster areas. OxyChem donated over 120,000 pounds of ACL chlorine water disinfection tablets to help Water Mission provide clean water for more than one million people in refugee camps and emergency disaster areas.
• ACC is recognizing Water Mission with the External Collaborator award, also in acknowledgement of this initiative. Over the last 20 years, the Water Mission model has served almost 4 million people in 56 countries with lasting safe water solutions to combat the global water crisis.

ACC convened a judging panel made up of external sustainability leaders from the consumer products, nonprofit and consulting sectors to review and select the award winners. 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 35 applications from more than 25 member companies.