You might not always realise it, but industrial chemicals are a fundamental part of everyday life, from clothing and food packaging to medical equipment and housing materials. “Without chemicals, the well-being of humanity and society could not be sustained”, says Xiaofang Zhou from the UN Development Programme’s chemical unit in a recent report.
Despite their importance, the impact of chemicals on the environment and the health of humans and animals is considerable. Energy-intensive production methods are still largely reliant on fossil fuels and emit a lot of greenhouse gases – around six per cent of global emissions. The chemical sector is the largest industrial consumer of oil and gas.
Meanwhile, poor management of chemicals and waste can seriously contaminate the water, air and soil around us. According to the World Health Organization, at least two million people died from exposure to hazardous chemicals in 2019 – a 29 per cent rise in just three years.
This is mainly down to an increase in the sheer amount of chemicals now used around the world, particularly in emerging economies. As living standards rise, so too does demand for products in sectors like electronics, textiles, packaging and construction. According to the UN, global chemical production capacity has almost doubled since 2000.
Tough road to sustainability
While there are national and international regulations on the use, management and disposal of chemicals, many countries still lack the right frameworks and infrastructure to handle them properly. There is also a growing understanding that hitting sustainability targets will require serious change in the chemical industry. While the industry has been somewhat shielded in the past from direct consumer pressure, changing preferences are beginning to make an impact, says Accenture in a report on the circular economy for the chemical sector.
But as BASF chairman Martin Brudermüller told journalists in December 2021, change will be extremely tough: “The path to a circular economy will require enormous efforts on our part.” To improve sustainability, the sector must consider the whole product lifecycle, from the production of base materials to refining and then the utilisation of the end product.
The problem is that chemicals can be extremely difficult to recover once a product has been used – consider retrieving fertilisers from the ground or washing liquid from drains. And to complicate matters further, many consumer products contain mixtures of chemical products, which are tough to separate even if the end product can be recovered.
The potential of green chemistry
One solution could be the rapidly growing discipline of ‘green chemistry’, which aims to remove toxic pollutants from the beginning of a chemical process, rather than simply managing them afterwards. Its principles include the prevention of waste, improved energy efficiency, the design of safer chemicals and improved monitoring for pollution prevention.
Green chemistry innovators are working on a wide range of products and technologies to make the sector more sustainable. A greater use of renewable energy in chemical production processes will contribute to a greener sector, as will the emergence of carbon capture technologies. Then there are incremental solutions like Dow Chemical’s EVOQUE polymer, which reduces the use of titanium dioxide in paint manufacturing, lowering water consumption and cutting the carbon footprint by 22 per cent.
Other examples are more revolutionary and still in their infancy. Carbon dioxide has the potential to be turned from a waste by-product into an industrial refrigerant, for example. Gas by-products can be used to produce fuels. Bioplastics, which can be made with plant materials such as sugar or corn, are a rapidly emerging alternative to fossil-fuel-based plastics.
Potential solutions might need an impetus
The problem is, many of these ideas are hard to implement at scale and require a fundamental rethink to a huge, well-established industry. Circular approaches that minimise waste and maximise recycling should, eventually, become the economic choice for large industrial companies. But they may need a nudge in the right direction. Regulations like Europe’s REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) will help, but as the International Energy Agency points out in a recent report, “accelerated policy progress covering all regions will be needed” to make a timely impact.