How European chemical companies are cutting their emissions

Decarbonisation has been on the agenda of many politicians, organisations, and the public for a long time. With the consequences of rising CO2 emissions and climate change becoming increasingly visible, the situation has become more urgent, and action is necessary.

In December 2022, AET conducted a survey about the decarbonisation strategies under Scopes 1 and 2 of the GHG Protocol and the use of renewable energy within the industry, excluding petrochemical and pharmaceutical companies.

Only the companies and specific sites having a stack on-site or clearly having an outsourced steam supply were included in the survey. We thereby investigated approximately 300 major chemical companies that are operating at more than 1,000 sites in Europe.

 
The survey was based on publicly available data, and the results reveal significant decarbonisation commitments. The main results of the survey are shown below.

The AET survey showed that the chemical companies published a release of 330,000,000 tonnes of CO2 in 2020 and published an expected reduction of 100,000,000 tonnes of CO2 per year by 2030.

The frontrunner companies are characterised by:

• wanting to be transparent on specific CO2 emissions, energy consumptions and sources
• wanting to be climate neutral already by 2023 or 2025 and not by 2050 as most companies in general
• driving the transition toward net zero emissions by using an internal CO2 price of 100 EUR/tonnes when calculating new projects.

There are minor uncertainties in the presented data, as not all companies use the Science Based Targets initiative, and AET made estimates to align emission reductions from 2020 to 2030.

All in all, this indicates that the chemical sector can make a significant contribution towards reaching the decarbonisation targets in Europe by following the roadmap laid out by the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC).

To learn more about how European chemical companies are cutting their emissions, download our free e-book.