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:

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 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.

Eastman has joined forces with Sphera, a long-time supplier, on the next generation of Sphera’s life cycle assessment (LCA) automation software. This was launched earlier in 2022 and seeks to enable businesses “to quickly receive holistic, real-time analysis and insights into the environmental footprint of their product portfolios and integrates seamlessly with their existing systems” and thus reduce their greenhouse gas emissions at every step of production.

Devi Shah and Fatema Begum of Mayer Brown International look at how companies can deal with insolvency or restructuring issues*

At a cost of €12 million and in response to environmental legislation, Lanxess has commissioned a new biological wastewater treatment plant at its site at Kallo, near Antwerp. This has a capacity of 260,000 L/hour and also treats wastewater from two other companies. The site makes rubber chemicals and glass fibres.

Hamburger Energiewerke, Hamburg’s municipal utility, is to build a biomass cogeneration facility at Sasol Chemicals’ Brunsbüttel site. When fully operational in 2025, this will supply at least 70,000 MW/year of ‘green steam’ to the site, enabling Sasol Chemicals to reduce CO₂ emissions by some 13,000 tonnes/year. The company is targeting a 30% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.