The 35 largest publicly traded chemical companies were evaluated based on four key criteria
Today, chemsec, a non-governmental environmental protection organization, released a new enterprise benchmark tool, chemcore, which measures the chemical footprint and other sustainability indicators of the world’s 35 largest chemical companies. Through chemscore, investors can obtain data on the best and worst performing companies in the chemical industry, based on the number of hazardous chemicals produced by these companies and their efforts to transition to safer and more environmentally friendly alternatives.
The evaluation of the 35 largest publicly listed chemical companies is based on four key criteria: 1) total production of hazardous chemicals; 2) Strive to develop and sell safer chemicals; 3) Transparency and public commitment to phase out certain substances; 4) Records of fines, liability cases and other accidents and disputes.
“This new chemical industry ranking is timely and important because it is based on the number of inherently hazardous chemicals produced by each of the 35 companies,” said Mark S. Rossi, executive director of clean production action According to the latest global chemicals outlook report, 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 are to achieve sustainable materials management in a circular economy, we need to significantly reduce the chemical footprint of the industry. “
The best performer in chemscore this year is DSM, a Dutch chemical company. Shari franjevic, greenscreen project manager for clean production action, added: “we salute the leaders of chemscore and are happy to see greenscreen ® For safer chemicals is one of the criteria that companies strive to rank in their efforts to design safer chemicals. ““ We invite more chemical producers to join greenscreen’s DSM and use this tool to replace high-profile chemicals with safer alternatives. “
The development of chemscore has been supported by investors including Aviva investors, a global asset management company with a management of 346 billion pounds of assets and CFP signers, and representatives from the chemical industry.
“Chemscore’s goal is to drive investors to become leaders in the chemical industry and remove investment from the laggards. CFP survey is a project of clean production action and another tool for investors to evaluate chemical management of companies. So far, downstream users of chemicals have been investigated, but the same applies to chemical producers, and we invite them to participate. ““ We are also pleased to work with chemsec to offer discounts on chemscore reports to members of the investor environmental health network (iehn). For more information about discounts and iehn membership, please contact Kayla Williams at Kayla [at] cleanproduction.org.
Facts and data from rankings
DSM and Akzo Nobel, the Dutch chemical companies, scored the highest and third.
Overall, European companies are the best performers.
None of the 35 companies has fully disclosed the types of chemicals they produce outside the EU and the US (where regulatory disclosure is required).
Only three companies scored more than 10 out of 18 in the category of hazardous chemicals in their portfolios. The three companies are Linde, Air Liquide (both natural gas companies) and indorama ventures (mainly polyester).
Three companies scored 0 in this category, indicating that their portfolios are full of toxic chemicals.
Fourteen of them produce persistent chemicals. Although these chemicals are still flying under the surveillance radar in many areas, their content in nature and human body has gradually increased over time, which has proved to be problematic.
In the development of green chemistry and safer chemicals, four companies are ahead of the others: DSM, AkzoNobel, Xuanwei and LG Chemical.
All companies have been given a seven week window period to give feedback on their own ratings, making it possible to improve their ratings. Eighteen of the 35 companies responded.
