Covestro wants to halve energy use by 2030

Materials manufacturer joins global initiative for energy efficiency

The Leverkusen-based materials manufacturer Covestro has set itself another ambitious sustainability goal: The company wants to halve its energy use per ton of manufactured products by 2030 relative to a baseline of 2005. Richard Northcote, Chief Sustainability Officer at Covestro, announced the undertaking on Wednesday at the Energy Efficiency Global Forum in Washington D.C., where Covestro joined the recently launched campaign 'Energy Productivity 100'(EP100).

The campaign is part of The Climate Group, an NGO with members including pioneers from the worlds of business, politics and society who are working together to lower emissions on the planet. The companies taking part in the EP100 are committed to demonstrating their roles as leaders in energy efficiency, to boost their energy productivity – in other words to increase economic output from the energy they use – and thus pave the way forward to a future of clean energy supplies. Covestro is one of the first companies to join the EP100 initiative and hopes to be seen by other businesses as a role model.

"The chemical and plastics industry contributes to resource conservation and energy efficiency with its products and solutions, but it also requires a lot of energy," said Northcote in Washington. "And that is why we can – and want to – do our part toward fulfilling the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. To reduce your own energy use by half – or to double your energy productivity – may seem impossible to some companies today. But initiatives like EP100 motivate us, and hopefully many others, to apply intelligent solutions and indeed make possible what is now considered impossible."

Sustainability is a core element of the Covestro business strategy. The company is working continuously on processes and solutions for reducing its energy use and CO2 emissions. Covestro recently announced its intention to halve its specific CO2 emissions by 2025 relative to a baseline of 2005. The company practically reached the previous target – a reduction of 40 percent relative to 2005 – in 2015 already. And as far as increasing energy efficiency, Covestro had set the target of 30 percent by 2020 and achieved it in 2015.

But Covestro is not only reducing its own energy use and emissions. The company's products also are helping to save energy and use it more efficiently in many industries and areas of application, for example by making cars lighter and more economical, or through insulating buildings efficiently.