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Perstorp adds water and waste targets

Swedish chemical company Perstorp has added new corporate sustainability targets for water and waste to its sustainability strategy. These comprise 30% absolute reductions of freshwater consumption and of both hazardous waste and non-hazardous waste directed to disposal by 2030 from a 2019 baseline.

German companies in renewable energy deals

Lanxess and Evonik have separately signed power purchase agreements (PPAs) with energy companies Engie and EnBW respectively, under which they will increase the renewable share of their electricity needs in the coming years. The former’s PPA will see 1,400 GWh supplied to seven sites from 17 wind farms and four solar parks in Germany. Meanwhile the latter is taking an additional 50 MW from EnBW’s planned He Dreiht offshore wind farm in the North Sea over the next 15 years, in addition to 100 MW it signed to take last November.

ACC challenges regulators on chemical management

The American Chemistry Council (ACC), the main trade body of the chemicals industry in the US, has issued a ‘9 in 9 Challenge’ to Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). These challenges arise from the revision of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in 2016.

The association is asking for action over the first nine months of 2023 to revise nine key policies, which, it says, are “weakening US chemicals management and the solutions to correct these problems”. They include:

* Fulfilling TSCA’s statutory obligations and meeting programme deadlines

Kao, Firmenich lead in carbon disclosure

Non-profit organisation CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) has issued its rankings for 2022. These rate about 15,000 companies in multiple industries from about 18,700 who submitted data about their emissions on a scale from A to D- in three categories. In all, 283 received an A for Climate Change, 25 for Forests and 103 for Water Security.

UK REACH deadlines to be extended

Following consultation with stakeholders over the summer, the UK Department of Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) has decided to extend the deadline for registering substances with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) under UK REACH, the legislation that replaces EU REACH, by three years. This is subject to consultation with devolved governments in Scotland and Wales. As a result, the new deadlines will be:

SBTi validates three firms’ climate targets

The Science Based Target initiative (SBTi), a collaboration between the United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute, the Climate Disclosure Project and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to drive corporate climate action, has validated the latest greenhouse gas reduction (GHG) targets of three chemical companies as both science-based and aligned with the UN Paris Agreement to limit the global temperature rise to no more than 1.5ºC this century.

CEFIC calls for action on energy costs

CEFIC has called on the European Commission and EU Member States to “immediately design and implement closely coordinated pan-European measures to limit the impact of energy prices vis-à-vis competing economies, increase energy supply and incentivise reductions in energy consumption”, both for the upcoming winter and beyond. “Skyrocketing gas and electricity prices vis-à-vis competing economies, the potential risk of gas supply shortages and mandates of electricity consumption reduction are putting hundreds of chemical plants at risk throughout Europe,” the association said.

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