Today, chemsec, an environmental non-governmental organization, released a new enterprise benchmarking tool, chemcore, which measures the chemical footprint and other sustainability indicators of the world’s 35 largest chemical companies. Through chemscore, investors can obtain the best and worst performance data in the chemical industry, which are based on the number of hazardous chemicals they produce and their efforts to transition to safer and greener alternatives.
The evaluation of 35 largest listed chemical companies is mainly based on four key criteria: 1) total production of hazardous chemicals; 2) Efforts to develop and sell safer chemicals; 3) Level of transparency and public commitment to phase out certain substances; 4) Records of accidents and disputes, such as fines and liability cases.
Mark S. Rossi, executive director of cleaner production action organization, said: “this new chemical industry ranking is a timely and important measure because it is based on the number of inherently hazardous chemicals produced by these 35 companies.”“ The recent global chemicals outlook report points out that the global chemical industry is expected to double by 2030, but hazardous chemicals and other pollutants continue to accumulate in the environment and human body. If we want to achieve sustainable material management in the circular economy, we need to significantly reduce the chemical footprint of the industry. ” click here to learn more about chemical companies
The best performer in this year’s chemscore is DSM, a Dutch chemical company“ We salute the leader of chemscore and are pleased to see the green screen ® Safer chemicals are one of the criteria to measure the company’s efforts to design safer chemicals, “added Shari franjevic, project manager of green screen cleaner production action“ We invite more chemical manufacturers to join DSM and use the greenscreen tool to replace those chemicals of concern with safer alternatives. ”
The development of chemscore was supported by investors, including Aviva investors and representatives of the chemical industry. Yingjiehua investment company is a global asset management company with 346 billion pounds of assets under management. It is the signatory of the chemical footprint project (CFP).
“Chemscore’s goal is to promote investors to invest in leaders in the chemical industry and withdraw capital from backward enterprises. CFP survey is a project of cleaner production action and another tool for investors to evaluate enterprise chemical management. So far, downstream users of chemicals have been investigated, but it also applies to chemical manufacturers, and we invite them to participate, “Mark S. Rossi added“ We are also pleased to work with chemsec to provide members of the investor environmental health network (iehn) with discounts on the purchase of chemscore reports. For more information about discounts and iehn membership, please contact Kayla Williams at Kayla [at] cleanproduction.org.
Facts and figures from ranking
DSM, a Dutch chemical enterprise, and AkzoNobel won the highest and third place respectively.
Overall, European companies performed best.
None of the 35 companies fully disclosed the types of chemicals they produced outside the EU and the United States (regulations in these regions forced them to disclose).
Only three companies scored more than 10 points (a total of 18 points) in assessing the categories of hazardous chemicals in the company’s portfolio. The three companies are Linde, Air Liquide (both natural gas companies) and indorama ventures (mainly producing polyester fiber).
Three chemical companies scored zero in this category, indicating that their portfolios were full of toxic chemicals.
Fourteen of these companies produce persistent chemicals. Although these chemicals are still under the regulatory radar in many areas, the concentration of these chemicals in nature and human body has gradually increased over time, and they have been proved to be problematic.
In the development of green chemistry and safer chemicals, four companies are ahead of others: DSM, AkzoNobel, Xuanwei and LG chemistry.
All companies have a 7-week window and can give feedback on their scores to improve their scores. 18 of the 35 enterprises answered.
