Minimizing our climate change also means understanding and reducing our environmental impact, including with respect to our energy use and GHG emissions. We are actively pursuing opportunities to assess and reduce our energy consumption and emissions along our value chains while addressing risks climate change may pose for our business.
In 2022, we announced a Sustainability Goal in support of this approach: reduce our combined Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions intensity by 25% by 2030 from a 2020 base of 0.158 MT CO2e/MT of production.
In 2022, our combined Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions intensity was 0.156 MT CO2e/MT of production or a decrease of 1.3% as compared to our 2020 emissions intensity baseline. We believe we are on track to achieve our 2030 goal. To meet our objective, our plan is to implement initiatives designed to reduce our overall energy use and GHG emissions, including:
- Continuing to conduct audits of our sites to identify our main energy consumers and reduce consumption
- Investing in technology improvements, including replacing outdated and inefficient equipment and high-energy consuming lighting
- Shifting to renewable electricity
- Cascading energy and emissions reduction goals into our supply chain and R&D organizations to align our teams behind innovative solutions for our own operations and our customers’
- Engaging with third-party energy and emission experts as new opportunities arise
Managing Our Impact
We strive to understand and reduce our environmental impact and regularly implement initiatives to achieve this objective. With respect to our energy use and GHG emissions for example, at least 80% of our sites have replaced traditional lighting with LEDs, either partially or completely, and we are evaluating additional replacements where feasible. We also routinely analyze our environmental policies and procedures to comply with, and exceed where possible, requirements under applicable laws, regulations and industry standards.
Our sites track various sustainability and efficiency metrics and are committed to driving environmental performance improvements. This process is being fully digitalized to support our ability to respond in real-time.
Measuring Our Footprint
Due to the formulation-based nature of our operations, our energy consumption is lower than that of other more traditional chemical manufacturers who focus on molecule synthesis. Regardless, we actively monitor our electricity and energy consumption to help drive reductions. We regularly assess and measure our Scope 1 and 2 emissions generated by our organization using the market-based methodology outlined in the World Resource Institute’s GHG protocol.
In 2022, electricity usage accounted for approximately 50% of our total energy consumption and ~64% of our total (Scope 1 and Scope 2) GHG emissions. In addition, renewable energy contributed ~7% of our overall energy use, which was 22% higher than the renewable energy we consumed in 2021.
Energy & Emissions Reduction Initiatives
PV Water Heaters in India – In March 2022, our facility in Pune installed solar water heaters. These heaters allow us to heat water to the required temperature using a completely renewable energy source, therefore reducing the Carbon footprint typically associated with a conventional water heater. We estimate that future energy savings will be 12,000 KWh or 8MT of CO2e per year, which would represent a ~8% reduction of Pune’s total annual CO2e footprint.
Renewable Energy Purchase in the U.K. – Our Birmingham, Wantage and Wigan facilities recently switched to 100% renewable energy sources through green tariffs, leading to a reduction of ~1,500 MT CO2e GJ of conventional electricity use in 2022.
We use MT to quantify our emissions footprint. On this page and in our ESG report, MT refers to Metric Ton, which is the same as the units of measure referred to as Tonne (1,000kg).