Sustainability continues to be a major driving force for innovation in the chemical industry. It also plays a role in each company’s economic and social decision-making process. However, sustainability is difficult to quantify because there are so many ways to define sustainability.
AIChE’s Institute for Sustainability (IfS) defines sustainability as “the path of continuous improvement, wherein the products and services required by society are delivered with progressively less negative impacts upon the earth.” Using this definition, the AIChE Sustainability Index (SI), was established to allow for the quantification of sustainability efforts. The SI is comprised of seven categories: strategic commitment; environmental performance; safety performance; product stewardship; social responsibility; sustainability innovation and value chain management. The AIChE SI was originally unveiled in the November 2007 issue of CEP (p. 13) and further described in detail in the January 2009 issue of CEP (p. 60). Since that time, the 10 major chemical companies that participate in the program (Air Products, Akzo Nobel, Ashland, BASF, Celanese, Dow Chemical, DuPont, Eastman Chemical, LyondellBasell, and Praxair; Rohm and Haas was acquired by Dow Chemical in 2009) have continued to dedicate and promote their efforts in all areas regarding sustainability, representative of chemical industry efforts in whole.
This article discusses the changes seen and trends formed in the chemical industry over the period 2007–2012 for each of the categories that makes up the AIChE SI (which is the most current sustainability data). All comparisons made are amongst the 10 companies surveyed, except where noted differently. Also, as in the previous discussion of the AIChE SI, the data are analyzed to see if there are any correlations between company size and company sustainability performance.