Chemicals
Analysis: Ranking the Stars of Your Product Portfolio
On top of business drivers such as cost savings and top line growth, increased regulations and reporting standards stimulate companies to enhance their sustainability performance. In this line of activities, a new technique has made its way into Strategy and Investor Relations departments as Social Responsible Investment (SRI) principles have been adopted by significant swarms of (private) investors. This requires companies to re-think the sustainability performance of their product portfolios. The recent introduction of the framework for Portfolio Sustainability Assessment by the WBCSD further implies the importance of the emerging phenomenon and provides useful tools for implementation.
Impact Valuation at LANXESS: A Practitioner Perspective
How does a corporation add value to society? Investors and other stakeholders are more and more requesting companies to value their businesses in a way that incorporates externalities, such as carbon emissions and health effects. Leading specialty chemicals company LANXESS has developed an impact valuation model that measures and monetizes the company’s impacts on society. This is how they did it.
Circular Economy in Chemicals: Materiality in Material Science
According to chemical industry association Cefic, the EU chemical industry’s share of world markets has seriously declined in the past 20 years. In 1995 EU industry sales amounted to €326 billion, representing 32.3% of worldwide sales. Two decades on, the EU chemicals sales have grown almost 60% but the market share has dropped to a meagre 14.7% in 2015. This “dilution effect” looks set to continue. Demand for chemicals is growing strongly in China, India and other emerging countries but slowly in Europe and North America, where Europe sells most of its chemicals. What can sustainable innovation contribute to this challenge?
Empowering Smallholder Farmers within the Value Chain
What do the Rana Plaza clothing factory disaster and the Chinese food safety scandal that, according to Reuters, caused a 4.2 percent share price decrease for Yum Brands have on common? They are two of the many examples of the costs and risks that companies can incur when a sustainable and integrated supply chain management is not in place. On the other hand, responsible management comes with many benefits, including greater access to capital and new markets, reducing the cost of material input, energy and transportation, and spurring innovation in order to meet evolving customer and business partner requirements. The business case is clear.
2016 Dow Jones Sustainability Index Results
On the 8th of September 2016, RobecoSAM announced the results of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI). We are proud to be working for Europe's frontrunners of which Koninklijke DSM and Telenet Group Holding are this year's industry group leaders. Other industry group leaders include Unilever, Roche Holding, Telecom Italia, and Metro AG. Companies that were added in this year’s world index are Cisco Systems, Essilor, Royal Dutch Shell, and Adobe Systems, whereas Samsung Electronics and BT Group are companies that have been deleted from the index.
Why Sustainable Innovation Needs Chemicals & Vice Versa
As a major supplier to industries including healthcare, construction, agriculture and automotive, the chemicals industry is a prime driver of sustainable innovation with an impact that spreads out widely. Chemistry is a true enabler in tackling megatrends, for instance by offering solutions that meet the growing demand for alternative energy to battle climate change, solutions that can keep cities liveable in times of rapid urbanization, solutions in the area of health and nutrition required by the world’s growing and aging population – and the list goes on.
Sekisui Inspires Youngsters to Drive Sustainable Change
Sekisui Chemical Company, the Japanese manufacturer of high quality polyolefin foams is very active in the field of sustainability. In 2007, when Sekisui celebrated its 60-year anniversary, it organized the first Global Children’s Eco Summit in Japan with children from all over the world, followed by regional events in Europe, North-America and Asia.The big idea behind the involvement of this specific stakeholder group is that they are very well equipped to be change agents for a sustainable future.
3 Solutions to Tackle the Plastic Soup
Over the years the global community has spent more time admiring and talking about the great plastic waste problem than finding a solution. Luckily, a number of organizations has started to take matters in their own hands. They engage the right stakeholders, create a solution to address the problem and make a profit along the way, by re-engineering their business model and sustainable innovation.
How Leading Chemicals Companies Surpass Their Competition
For the case studies we wrote for IMD business school on Royal DSM, and the forthcoming case on Novozymes for INSEAD, Finch & Beak did a deep dive in the sustainability performance within of the chemicals sector. This has taught us that at least a few chemical companies are among the global community of corporate sustainability front runners, which sparked the question: what is the status of sustainability in the rest of the industry?
