Technology enabled sustainability in the chemical industry

Like other major industries, environmental sustainability is high on the agenda of the chemical industry right now. In particular, climate change is leading to increasing policy and regulatory pressure for all industries to reduce the environmental impact resulting from their operations. This paper shows the results of a recent survey we conducted surveying 35 senior executives from a mixture of large corporations and small chemical companies across Europe, North America and Asia.

We find that, despite the consensus over the long-term strategic importance of environmental sustainability, the short-term individual business cases are not always easy to establish. Key technology platforms are still at a relatively early stage and require significant long-term investment which is often in competition with other business priorities. Companies, even industry leaders, do not have all the technical competencies in-house to go it alone and need to work with others (e.g. start-ups, research institutes, companies in other parts of the value chain, or even competitors) to make a true breakthrough.

Sagentia Innovation has been helping many of its clients in the industry to define their sustainability strategy and explore opportunities for developing greener products while reducing their environmental impact.