Brussels, 6 May 2019. – Speaking at the European Business Summit taking place in Brussels on 6-7 May, Cefic President Daniele Ferrari described how the chemical industry is developing solutions to key issues shaping the future of Europe.
To support the EU’s ambitious strategy on climate change mitigation, the chemical industry has been developing ways to make its plants and operations more resource and energy efficient. The industry has already cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 61% and halved its energy intensity since 1990s. A remarkable result if one considers that production grew by 83% between 1991 and 2016.
But we will not stop there, said Ferrari. One of the ways to further reduce the industry’s carbon footprint is to use more renewable energy or bio-based raw materials to produce chemicals. At the same time we are also working on innovative recycling technologies that will be one of the key developments along with the progress in exploring digital data mining and automated data analysis to make our production processes and supply chain processes more efficient.
The technologies are there, said Ferrari, yet in many instances we need support from the government to deploy them at a larger scale or bring them to the market. This is why we require an EU regulatory framework that creates opportunities for the industry to innovate and keep jobs in Europe, he concluded.