Within the Restrictions Roadmap under the EU’s Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, ECHA has released its Regulatory Strategy for Flame Retardants (FRs). This refers mainly to halogenated FRs and organophosphorus-based FRs, which make up about 70% of the organic FR market.

The strategy identified aromatic brominated FEs (BFRs) as candidates for EU-wide restriction on five classes of aromatic BFRs that are already or will be confirmed to be persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic, or very persistent and very bioaccumulative, or identified as substances of very high concern.

An EU-wide project by ECHA’s Enforcement Forum carried out in 2021 has found that most users of substances of commonly controlled very high concern (SVHCs), mainly SMEs, already comply with the authorisation requirement to control risks.

The authorities of all 28 member countries undertook 690 inspections at 516 companies, mostly SVHCs. The most common SVHCs checked were chromium trioxide and strontium chromate, which are used mainly in surface treatment and chrome plating.

Lanxess has announced the development of the Product Carbon Footprint Engine, which takes data from its various business units and automatically calculates cradle-to-gate greenhouse gas emissions for their products. This includes production, product-specific emissions related to raw materials, energy, operating materials, and transport and emissions from waste disposal.

Sumitomo Chemical, Maruzen Petrochemical and Mitsui Chemicals have agreed to study the feasibility of collaborative projects to achieve carbon neutrality at the Keiyo Coastal Industrial Complex in Chiba. This is part of climate change targets all three have developed individually.

The initiative will mainly comprise measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as diversifying feedstocks, using biomass, new chemical recycling and material recycling technologies, converting to new kinds of fuels and the renewal of associated infrastructure.

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has published a proposed restriction of around 10,000 per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) on its website. Its scientific committees for Risk Assessment (RAC) and Socio-Economic Analysis (SEAC) will now start evaluating the proposal.

This followed three years of investigations by the national authorities of Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. In a report submitted to ECHA on 13 January, they concluded that the risks from PFAS are not adequately controlled and should therefore be restricted.

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.

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.