INEOS is committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the Paris Agreement and has a company-wide GHG management system in place to reduce emissions to net zero by 2050.
INEOS is committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with the Paris Agreement and has a company-wide GHG management system in place to reduce emissions to net zero by 2050. All our businesses monitor and report emissions in accordance with the GHG Protocol and have dedicated emissions reduction roadmaps for each of their sites. Based on these roadmaps, we have set a company-wide target to reduce scope 1 and 2 emissions by 33% by 2030 compared to 2019, while allowing for growth.
INEOS’ site-roadmap initiative and 2030 investment plans aim to drive down our GHG emissions, while remaining profitable. To back our plans and take advantage of opportunities offered by the evolving energy and climate environment, we will invest over €6 billion in the years to come. We pursue a broad range of initiatives including:
Europe has proposed scaling up renewable hydrogen production to 10 million tonnes by 2030, and other major regions such as North America and Asia have similarly ambitious plans to expand low-carbon hydrogen production to reduce emissions. INEOS is well positioned to take a leading role in the emerging low-carbon hydrogen market as it is currently Europe’s largest operator of electrolysis through its INEOS Inovyn business.
INEOS launched a new hydrogen business to develop and build green hydrogen capacity across Europe in November 2020 and has plans to invest €2 billion in electrolysis projects across Europe, starting with projects in Norway, Germany, and Belgium, and looking to invest further in the UK and France. In 2022, we selected Atkins to design a world-scale low-carbon hydrogen plant at our Grangemouth site that is expected to reduce our annual emissions by 1 million tonnes once up and running in 2030.
Hydrogen has been used for a long time in the chemical industry as feedstock in the manufacture of products such as fertilisers. There is also growing interest in hydrogen and its derivatives, such as ammonia and methanol, as a zero-carbon energy source in the chemical industry and wider economy, for example in transportation.
Each year INEOS produces more than 400,000 tonnes of hydrogen through its chlor-alkali, refining and cracking operations. This is enough to fuel 300 million miles of heavy goods vehicle travel: the equivalent of 12,000 trucks circumnavigating the world. Hydrogen is essential for our transition to net zero by 2050 and can contribute significantly to our 2030 reduction target.
While the key advantages of hydrogen lie in it being a zero-carbon energy carrier and the fact that it can be used to store energy, it is important to note that it should be produced in a low-carbon manner, such as electrolysis with renewables, or through steam methane reforming (SMR) with carbon capture and storage (CCS).
In addition to being Europe’s largest operator of electrolysis technology, INEOS also owns hydrogen storage infrastructure. The two combined can help buffer the intermittency of renewable energy. As a producer and user of hydrogen, we are in a unique position to use our existing co-produced hydrogen to kickstart the hydrogen economy for INEOS, Europe, and the wider world.
Continuous improvement in efficiency and reduction of energy use and carbon emissions is standard practice across INEOS.
INEOS is pursuing a wide range of optimisation opportunities, such as new methods that improve process efficiency, innovative solutions for heat and power integration, waste heat valorisation, and more selective catalysts. Our projects encompass:
Efficiency improvements in our power plants, such as at our Grangemouth site.
Each INEOS site is measured against the previous year and our 2019 baseline, as well as compared with other manufacturing sites in the business, and benchmarked for its profile in a region or country. At a higher level, emissions and energy data are ranked per INEOS business, highlighting potential areas of improvement and measures to replicate across the group.
Although it is INEOS' primary goal is to cut emissions at source, we recognise that CCUS will play an important role in mitigating GHG emissions in the short run, either through utilisation or storage. In fact, several INEOS sites have been capturing emissions for a long time.
Over the past two decades, INEOS has been capturing GHG emissions at plants in Antwerp (Belgium), Tavaux and Lavera (France), and Cologne (Germany), removing over 300’000 tonnes of CO2 per annum – equivalent to the annual emissions from around 30’000 cars. We are also leading the Greensand consortium that is undertaking a pilot project in Denmark.
Project Greensand aims to develop and demonstrate that CO2 can be stored underground in the Danish part of the North Sea. This will take place in the INEOS operated Siri field, located more than 200 kilometres west of the Danish coast. In the short term, the project will store up to 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year in 2025. By 2030, Project Greensand aims to store up to 8 million tonnes of CO2 per year.
Several INEOS businesses continue to substitute fossil-based raw materials with recycled and bio-based feedstocks at commercial scale.
For example, at our olefins plant in Cologne (Germany), biomass co-produced by the wood pulping industry has been successfully converted into bio-olefins. Similarly, our Inovyn plant in Tavaux (France) is producing bio-attributed epichlorohydrin (REODRINTM) from renewable feedstocks that do not compete with the food chain, reducing GHG emissions by up to 70% compared to the fossil-based equivalent. INEOS has also started producing commodity chemicals, such as phenol, acetone, styrene, and PVC, with bio-based feedstocks.
INEOS’ bio-attributed products can be made with 100% substitution of bio-feedstock on a mass-balance basis and provide significant GHG savings in the value chains of our products. It results in products which have a proven positive impact on the environment without sacrificing product performance.
Using alternative feedstocks can also have a positive impact on INEOS’ emissions from its operations by reducing non-biogenic emissions released from chemical reactions or when process steps can be avoided by using more refined or recycled feedstocks. This is why the use of alternative feedstocks is included in our 2030 roadmaps, even if the impact of this pathway on scope 1 and scope 2 emissions is modest.
A critical element of our drive for a more sustainable business is ensuring that we capture and share best practice across the diverse range of businesses that form INEOS.
To do this, we have an active Climate and Energy network. This Group-wide network gathers and shares information, best practices and shapes actions and strategies on all matters to do with sustainability, for example GHG emissions, innovations in recycling, government policies, and more. The information is captured in a comprehensive sharepoint which is available to all businesses.
The network is led by a dedicated team, and governs INEOS' database on emissions, energy, water, waste, and feedstock data from across all INEOS businesses and sites.
The network engages at all levels in the company. It ensures that important developments are communicated company-wide via weekly bulletins and to CEOs and other executives via monthly briefs. It also holds annual review meetings attended by CEOs and subject experts from each business. Since 2021 'young CEN' is also active across all businesses, engaging INEOS' new/next generation in the post-2025 climate and energy agenda and driving the INEOS Talks.
Resource conservation and waste reduction are major societal and political challenges that demand a response from industry. Across INEOS our chemical sites aim to optimise material efficiency and use recycled or renewable materials as feedstock to cut waste and pollution.
We contribute to the transition to a bio-based and circular economy by investing in bio-attributed and circular products that save resources, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and create opportunities for our customers and businesses to meet consumer demands and enter new markets. We also work to improve the recyclability of our products, so they can be reused, or recycled to the maximum extent possible, reducing landfill, incineration, and lowering the demand for fossil-based raw materials.
This is a particular priority for our businesses that make products that reach end-consumers, such as polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, and PVC. The move to a circular economy will maximise the valuable contribution that such plastics make to society, while minimising their environmental impact.
We have set ambitious targets to incorporate recycled material into our polymers and ensure our polymer products are 100% recyclable by 2025. We are on track to exceed these targets and have made a new pledge to incorporate at least 850,000 tonnes of recycled and bio-sourced material per annum into our polymers by 2030.
INEOS is committed to monitoring and reducing its waste footprint and safely managing its hazardous waste to protect the natural environment, comply with national regulations, and conserve resources.
As a partner in the transition to a circular economy, INEOS plays its role in optimising resources and eliminating waste where possible. We are dedicated to reducing the environmental impact of our operations on air, soil, and water and we strive to minimise the consumption of virgin materials and the volume of waste generated through our activities.
Across INEOS we seek to optimise resource efficiency and minimise waste at our sites by following the principles of the waste hierarchy: reduce, reuse, recycle, recover (energy). In 2022, 18% of all waste generated at our sites was recycled or reused, and another 20% was sent for energy recovery.
Our sites have environmental management systems in place in line with ISO 14001 to identify and implement opportunities to reduce material consumption and valorise waste and by-products.
INEOS' businesses have introduced bio-based feedstocks into a range of bio-attributed polymers and chemicals. At all INEOS sites offering such products, each step in the supply chain has been fully certified by ISCC or RSB. In both cases the final product carries an attribution according to the displacement of fossil fuel-derived raw materials.
These sustainable products are introduced by our businesses into a range of polymers and chemicals, following the mass balance approach.
In mechanical recycling, plastic waste is physically sorted, shredded, cleaned, and processed into smaller pieces without changing the basic structure of the material. This is then reprocessed back into products and is the quickest route to increasing recycling rates.
Across our businesses, we have already launched more than 25 new product grades that contain over 50% recycled content. Many of these are newly developed high-performance products that match the performance of virgin materials.
We have, for instance, developed new Recycl-IN polyolefin products containing up to 70% recycled polymer for a wide range of applications. Our INOVYN business has also fostered the VinylPlus industry recycling initiative that has enabled about 800’000 tonnes of PVC to be recycled each year.
One of the main bottlenecks in this approach is the economic collection and recovery of sufficient volumes of plastic waste of the right quality. To this end, INEOS is working with partners to help stimulate investment in recovery infrastructure in Europe.
In advanced recycling, we distinguish between dissolution technology, depolymerisation, pyrolysis and gasification.
Dissolution technology
Waste polymers can be purified by dissolving them in a solvent and reducing or eliminating additives, colours, and impurities. The technology is still in the early stages of commercial development.
Depolymerisation
In depolymerisation, polymers are recovered and separated from consumer waste streams then unzipped back to the starting monomers from which they were made. These can then be purified and repolymerised to make high purity virgin resin. In a world first, INEOS Styrolution has proven the concept for polystyrene. It has demonstrated full circularity by depolymerising waste polystyrene back to styrene, then repolymerising it to make products identical to fossil carbon-based materials. We are now working with several partners to commercialise the process using state-of-the-art technologies.
Pyrolysis
Another approach is pyrolysis of mixed plastic waste, in which mixed plastic waste is converted to an oil via a thermal cracking process. This oil is further purified and processed, then used as feedstock in steam crackers to produce the building blocks (ethylene, propylene, butadiene, benzene) necessary for polymer and chemical production.
This recycling method is developing rapidly, and INEOS is at its forefront. The advantage is that it can process a wide range of post-consumer mixed plastic waste that could not otherwise be recycled and would end up in landfill or be burnt.
We have recently demonstrated the technology at commercial scale by feeding oils derived from mixed plastic waste to our large olefins unit in Cologne, Germany. The process and resulting products have been certified by the ISCC, an independent accreditation body. Also in 2021, INEOS O&P US received ISCC Plus certification across many of its sites including three sites in Texas and California following the successful commercial scale trials of advanced recycling production through pyrolysis.
Gasification
Mixed plastic wastes can also be converted by gasification to a synthesis gas which can then be further converted into polymers and other products. We are exploring this approach with academic and industry partners because it may provide a large scale, flexible, cost-effective way of reusing difficult-to-recycle mixed waste streams.
Gasification offers the highest flexibility and scalability in terms of waste, feed and recyclate.
However, it requires significant investment and development, for which joint industry collaboration will be needed.
These advances have been made by our multidisciplinary research teams, formed to bring material science, product design, and applications and process knowledge together for a common purpose.
Incorporating recycled and renewable content
INEOS has launched more than 30 product grades that contain over 50% recycled content. Many of these products match the performance of new materials. This includes our Recycl-IN range of mechanically recycled polyolefins that compound recycled plastic waste with highly engineered virgin resins, as well as our Terluran ECO range of mechanically recycled ABS–both of which offer drop-in performance with up to 70% recycled content. We have also launched a mechanically recycled polystyrene with 100% recycled content behind a functional barrier that makes it suitable for food contact applications.
Designing for circularity
Plastics have many beneficial properties and make a significant contribution to modern life but currently only about 20% of plastic waste is recycled globally.
As a plastics producer, INEOS recognises that designing products to be recyclable is an essential part of the solution to improving recycling rates and reducing end-of-life impacts.
We have pledged to ensure that all our polymers are recyclable by 2025. Through our Design for Recycling initiative, we are working with value chain partners to develop mono-material plastic applications that are easier to recycle. We are investing in Machine Direction Orientation technology to produce recyclable films using fewer polymers and we are switching to carbon-free pigments in our black plastics that can be detected by sorting facilities.
INEOS’ main raw materials derive from natural gas and crude oil, which contain the hydrogen and carbon molecules we need to make many vital chemical products.
As well as using natural gas to make ammonia, for instance, we use ethane derived from natural gas in our steam crackers to produce ethylene, which is the building block for a wide range of our chemicals. Similarly, we use materials derived from crude oil, such as naphtha that we crack to produce ethylene, and aromatics that we use to make many of our chemicals and plastics.
INEOS recognises that fossil resources are limited and valuable, and yet they often end up in landfill or incineration. Extracting these resources also has a significant environmental footprint. This is of particular concern in value chains where resources are used in short-lived applications, such as single-use plastic items. INEOS is committed to using raw materials as efficiently as possible and transitioning to renewable and recycled materials, when available and affordable, so we can continue to make products of vital importance to modern life, while minimising our environmental impact.
Water shortage affects every continent we operate in, so we have a duty to use water responsibly for the good of society and the natural environment.
INEOS is committed to using water sustainably and recognises the human right to water and sanitation.
As a Responsible Care company, we strive to protect water as a scarce resource, reduce emissions to water, and continually improve the water efficiency of our sites. We monitor our wastewater as a priority and evaluate its potential impact in accordance with local regulation. We work with local authorities to ensure compliance with safety measures and minimise the environmental impact of wastewater on water bodies and drinking water. This helps protect the natural environment and the wellbeing of our employees and people near our sites.
We have a company-wide system in place to track our water withdrawals and discharges, and many of our sites have environmental management systems in place in line with ISO 14001. We implement opportunities to strengthen our sustainable water management through recycling our process water, minimising our drinking water consumption, and optimising our handling, transport, and treatment of wastewater.
We closely monitor data from all INEOS manufacturing sites to manage our water balance and optimise our water strategy.
Water consumption per site is calculated as the difference between withdrawal and discharge and this balance is shared with each INEOS business for appropriate water planning and actions. This is a particular priority at INEOS sites in water stress areas. We have identified 22 such sites by screening all our locations using the WRI Water Risk Atlas (Aqueduct 3.0, 2019) in accordance with GRI standards. These sites (17% of our 129 manufacturing sites in 2022) account for approximately 2% of our total water withdrawals and discharges, as well as 6% of our total water consumption.
Reducing our water consumption is a group-wide ambition that we put into practice at each of our manufacturing sites. It is also an essential consideration in the design and retrofit of our plants.
We require that our suppliers do the same through our Supplier Code of Conduct. We have a company-wide REACH network in place to ensure excellence in product stewardship, meeting all regulatory requirements and identifying opportunities to substitute hazardous substances for more sustainable alternatives.
INEOS monitors its pollution through a company-wide data platform and is committed to complying with all regulations governing pollution and implementing measures across its sites to reduce environmental and social impacts of pollution.
Safe handling and containment of chemicals and products is of critical importance to INEOS. Our processes, operating procedures and working practices are designed to secure containment of all products and raw materials. The loss of containment of any materials is extremely rare, but any accidental emission of material is reported to the authorities according to the local regulations. To avoid or keep such risk to a minimum, we closely monitor all systems. We have internal reporting systems in place that trigger online reporting and full internal investigation when there is any loss of containment that is 10% of the reportable level. We call these LOC10s.
Through monitoring and taking corrective action in response to LOC10s, we have reduced the frequency of minor losses significantly over the last eight years. This includes:
INEOS is committed to advancing towards zero pollution in its value chains.
We consider it a priority to prevent chemical pollution downstream of our operations through effective product stewardship and sustainable product innovation. We also expect all our partners to comply with relevant environmental laws, use resources responsibly, and minimise negative impacts relating to pollution. As outlined in our Supplier Code of Conduct, we require our suppliers to manage their emissions to air, water, and soil, and follow Responsible Care principles when managing chemicals. Suppliers are also required to participate in the Operation Clean Sweep initiative if they handle plastic pellets
For sustainability initiatives we have signed up to, please click on the below link:
INEOS recognises that chemical pollution can be harmful to ecosystems and biodiversity, whether it is industrial spills or downstream pollution from products at the end-of-life stage.
We are committed to building sustainable chemical value chains that minimise the impact of pollution on the natural world through effective product design and strong stewardship.
We welcome the global biodiversity framework agreed at COP15 in December 2022. In light of potential targets, and forthcoming reporting requirements under frameworks such as the CSRD in the EU, INEOS conducted an initial screening for biodiversity risks at all our manufacturing sites in 2022. This entailed assessing each site based on its GPS coordinates against 17 measures of biodiversity risk to identify those with the most contact with endangered species, protected areas, and key biodiversity areas, as recognised by organisations such as IUCN and UNESCO.
Building on this initial assessment we intend to examine our biodiversity contact points more thoroughly in future years in accordance with the LEAP process advocated by TNFD to identify our dependencies and gauge our impacts, including in the value chain, so we can take targeted action and disclose high quality information for stakeholders.
Over and above our own SHE standards and guidelines, INEOS is a signatory to the International Council of Chemical Associations' (ICCA) Responsible Care Global Charter.
Signing the charter is part of our commitment to strengthening chemicals management systems, safeguarding people and the environment, and working towards sustainable solutions through our value chain. By following the guidelines and measures of Responsible Care® we commit to conducting business in a safe, ethical, and environmentally responsible manner.
INEOS adopts a comprehensive approach to product stewardship, so that our products enter and move along the supply chain to the customer in a safe and ethical manner. We work with all customers to ensure they have the necessary information, procedures, and facilities to receive, store, and use products safely.
INEOS is committed to fulfilling its obligations under REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) which ensures companies manage the risks associated with their products and provide customers with the information necessary to handle them in a safe and sustainable way.
INEOS often goes beyond REACH in the stewardship we apply to our products across all markets. The INEOS approach to product stewardship is managed by a company-wide REACH network.
INEOS products make a significant contribution to saving life, improving health and enhancing standards of living for people around the world.
INEOS is committed to protecting the welfare of animals. Our animal testing policy is based on the 3R's. We seek to Replace animal experiments with alternatives, Reduce the number of animals used in experiments, and Refine animal experiments to minimise harm. We only commission animal tests when it is essential to comply under national or international legislation, or absolutely necessary to safeguard human health where non-animal alternatives are not yet available. We work only with laboratories which are accredited to perform animal studies and are subject to independent assessment and inspection. Where possible we partner with industry consortia or trade associations, such as CEFIC, to share results and data and minimise unnecessary duplication. We fully support the development of animal-free testing of our products, and we are active in advocating that New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) be accepted in Integrated Approaches to Testing and Assessment (IATAs).
INEOS is reviewing the potential impact of proposed PFAS regulations on our industrial activities and value chain.
At INEOS, protecting safety, health, and the environment is a core guiding principle and our number one priority. At each step of our activities, we safeguard the health and safety of our employees, the communities in which we operate, and the users of our products.
INEOS does not manufacture PFAS or use PFAS as basic raw materials in its processes.
INEOS’ manufacturing sites use PFAS in diversified applications, however, such as membranes for electrolysers, gaskets, and lined piping or vessels because of their unique properties. Some applications are recognised as Best Available Techniques, while others provide significant benefit for safe and continued reliable operations of our industrial assets, with no equivalent alternatives currently available.
INEOS has contributed to the REACH restriction process by responding to the public consultation. More specifically, we will flag those uses of PFAS that are critical to our operations and identify critical applications that merit a derogation.
