At its Annual Meeting, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) honored four member companies and one external organization with its 2023 Sustainability Leadership Awards, recognizing innovative products, technologies and initiatives that help advance sustainability. “ACC members are making progress to innovate, develop and deploy products and technologies that advance sustainability by helping to protect the environment, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, enhance circularity, address plastics waste, and enhance community engagement,” said Chris Jahn, ACC President and CEO. “We are proud to recognize these member companies for their substantial achievements in these areas.”
ACC’s Sustainability Leadership Awards honor member companies for their achievements and contributions to sustainability in the following priority areas:
- Product Safety, Innovation & Transparency, for products, processes or initiatives that promote safe use of chemicals, transparency, informed sustainability decision-making and innovation to reduce risk.
- Environmental Protection, for products, processes or initiatives that address the environmental impacts of company products or operations.
- Circularity, for products, processes or initiatives that promote circularity.
- Social Responsibility & Community Engagement, for initiatives and programs that help build and connect local communities, elevate standards of living, and promote equity, diversity, and inclusion.
- ACC’s “External Collaborator” award recognizes an organization that has collaborated with an ACC member on an initiative that has made significant contributions to drive sustainability and innovation.
2023 Sustainable Leadership Award Winners
ACC recognized the following 2023 Sustainability Leadership Award winners in the following categories:
Product Safety, Innovation & Transparency
Evonik’s RHEANCE® One is a glycolipid-based platform produced from biomolecules identical to those found in nature and are mild to the skin. Using an all-natural biotechnical manufacturing process, RHEANCE® One allows for sustainable personal care products. RHEANCE® One is 100 percent biodegradable, environmentally friendly, utilizes responsibly sourced raw materials, and is produced and verified with a traceable supply chain to the farming level, allowing for an alternative to fossil-driven chemicals.
Environmental Protection
DuPont’s StyrofoamTM Brand ST-100 extruded polystyrene (XPS) Insulation used in building and construction applications is delivering a substantial 94 percent reduction in embodied carbon across the product life cycle, as verified through a third-party Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study and Environmental Production Declaration (EPD) assessment. The ST-100 XPS insulation incorporates a wide range of product properties, such as mechanical strength and moisture and fire resistance, while also enabling reduction in the use of blowing agents to reduce the global warming potential (GWP) impact and manufacturing costs.
Circularity
SABIC has partnered with Polivouga, a manufacturer of flexible film products, and Nueva Pescanova Group, a leading Spanish food brand, to launch TRUCIRCLE, a new, innovative project resulting in the world’s first frozen food packaging solution using SABIC’s certified circular polyethylene from feedstock sourced from OBP. SABIC’s certified circular polyolefins from recovered OBP demonstrates how OBP can be brought back into a circular material stream to be converted into high quality food packaging.
Societal Responsibility & Community Engagement
THINC30 is a social responsibility event platform designed by Covestro LLC to bring community stakeholders together to help drive the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the local Pittsburgh community. By sharing the UN SDGs with local business, government, academic and nonprofit leaders, Covestro hopes to inspire action that will advance the region’s growth and prosperity in a sustainable way.
External Collaborator
Dow Chemical and Waste Management launched a bold new collaboration to improve residential recycling for plastic films by allowing consumers in select markets to recycle materials like bread bags, cling wrap, and dry-cleaning bags directly in their curbside recycling. The program is expected to help divert more than 120,000 metric tons of plastics film from landfills annually, and by 2025, film recycling through Waste Management is expected to reach 8 percent of U.S. households.
Awards Selection Process
ACC convened a judging panel made up of external sustainability leaders from academia, nonprofit and media sectors to review and select the award winners. The judging panel chose winning initiatives based on a range of factors, including the level of innovation the initiative demonstrated, the scope and reach of its impacts and the extent to which it addresses priorities outlined in ACC’s Sustainability Principles and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. ACC received 48 applications from 23 member companies.