Responsible Care is the chemical industry’s voluntary sustainability programme.
In Finland it has been in action for a whopping 31 years!
2022 results show a commitment to making climate goals a reality in areas such as the use of energy and raw materials. Over half of Finnish companies committed to Responsible Care have set a climate target. The use of reused and renewable materials grew.
The chemical industry in Finland has set an ambitious goal. We strive for climate neutrality and nature positivity. We aim to reach our goal by both reducing carbon footprint and increasing handprint. In practice this means reducing our own carbon footprint, that is, our greenhouse gas emissions. It also means increasing our handprint through products and solutions that reduce our customer’s emissions. New raw materials, new technologies, and circular economy will play an important role in this process.
The companies committed to the Responsible Care programme in Finland have improved their energy efficiency gradually during the past years. Many of them have signed the national energy efficiency commitment too.
Many processes in the chemical industry require high pressure and high temperatures. This leads to high overall energy consumption. The majority of consumed electricity is bought from energy producers.
Since 1995, energy consumption proportionated to total production has decreased by 20% in Finland. In 2022, 26% of the energy used is electricity, while most are other forms of energy, such as heat. Totally 51% of the electricity consumed and 8% of other forms of energy consumed was produced using renewable energy sources.
Long-term development of safety culture has lead to good results in the Finnish chemical industry. The aim is in continuous development of safety towards a zero-incident goal.
Since 2000 lost time injuries have decreased to a quarter. The lost time injury frequency rate (LTI) of the chemical industry is significantly lower than in general in the Finnish industry. A good sign of an active safety culture is the constantly growing number of safety observations.
2022 marks a return to a positive safety development. In 35% of companies there were no injuries among employees or contractors. The lost time injury frequency rate reached it’s best score of all time.
Lost time injuries frequency rate and work hours lost
per million man-hours worked
Circular economy is in the heart of chemical industry and materials are used very efficiently in the industry. The raw materials differ as much as the end-products, which tells about the heterogenity of the chemical industry.
Most of the waste is utilised as raw material in other processes or as energy. The amount of materials going to waste has decreased significantly. Molecules are reused more and more.
Water is used both in chemical industry processes as well as in products as a raw material. Focus on water consumption has lead to an even further efficient use of resources.
Resources are used efficiently in the Finnish chemical industry’s processes and the work develops constantly. In 2022, 53% of the companies reported to use recycled materials in their production. In 2020 5,4% of materials leaving the production are by-products and waste materials.
The Finnish chemical industry’s greenhouse gas emissions keep on declining, while advancing towards carbon neutrality. The chemical industry is accountable for a little under 10% of the total greenhouse gas emissions from Finland.
In the chemical industry, the work to decrease the greenhouse gas emissions has been done by developing processes and switching to using as low-emission energy as possible. To reach the carbon neutrality goals, we need innovative new solutions alongside continuous improvement.
The work to reduce the Finnish chemical industry’s carbon footprint has been ongoing for a long time and greenhouse gas emissions have fallen by 32% since 1999. In 2022 the total direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions were 4.5 million tons CO2e.