Chemicals giant BASF showed a 2.1 percent increase in energy efficiency from 2010 to 2011, according to the company’s 2011 sustainability report.
This means that BASF met its goal of a 25 percent increase in its energy efficiency – defined as the amount of sales products in relation to its primary energy demand – by 2020 against a 2002 baseline, nine years ahead of schedule. BASF says that the use of power plants with power-heat technologies and other individual projects helped the company meet the goal. The company is now targeting a 35 percent increase in energy efficiency by 2020, against a 2002 baseline.
BASF reduced its use of drinking water by 20.9 percent from 2010 to 2011. This reduction puts it well on the way to reducing its drinking water consumption by half by 2020 against a 2010 baseline. At its Antwerp, Belgium, site the company has started using river water instead of drinking water for cooling processes.
The company also reduced the emissions of organic substances to water from 26.1 thousand metric tons in 2010 to 24.3 thousand metric tons in 2011, a reduction of 6.9 percent. BASF also reduced emissions of heavy metals in water by 5.6 percent year-on-year. The company plans to review all of its water protection processes at all its production sites by 2015.
Greenhouse gas emissions for the company showed a moderate absolute increase of 0.4 percent from 2010 to 2011. However, in 2010 BASF reached its 2020 goal of reducing the greenhouse gas emissions per metric ton of sales product by around 35 percent compared to 2002. The company has this year set a new goal to lower such emissions per ton of sales product by 40 percent by 2020 compared to 2002.
The company’s non-greenhouse gas emissions totals follow a similar story to that of its GHG emissions. BASF’s emissions of air pollutants dropped a modest 0.3 percent year-on-year but since 2002 the company has reduced its emissions by 61 percent (excluding oil and gas production).
Within the oil and gas business, the BASF Group company Wintershall aims to discontinue the continuous flaring of associated gas within its routine operations by the end of 2012 at all of its production facilities.
A new goal for Wintershall is to improve the energy efficiency of natural gas transportation: By 2020, it aims to reduce carbon emissions related to the amount and distance of transported natural gas by 10 percent compared with 2010. This will be accomplished through, for example, a more energy-efficient gas pipeline layout and the more intensive reuse of waste heat in the WINGAS Group’s transportation network.
In November, BASF topped carbon rankings of the world’s largest 1,270 companies, as the only one to disclose complete scope 3 emissions data, according to the Environmental Tracker from the Environmental Investment Organisation.
BASF came top in both the ET Global 800 Carbon Ranking and the updated ET Europe 300.
