{"id":104734,"date":"2022-02-17T07:04:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-17T06:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=104734"},"modified":"2022-02-14T12:18:29","modified_gmt":"2022-02-14T11:18:29","slug":"almost-all-chemicals-burden-the-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/almost-all-chemicals-burden-the-planet\/","title":{"rendered":"Almost all chemicals burden the planet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

More than 99 percent of the most widely produced chemicals aren\u2019t sustainable; their production is based on fossil raw materials and consumes more natural resources than the Earth can provide in the long term. This is the conclusion of a sustainability analysis developed at ETH Zurich, which for the first time provides absolute figures on the global environmental impact of the chemical industry.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur method compares the resources that chemicals consume with the ecological budget of our planet \u2013 this is a new approach,\u201d says Gonzalo Guill\u00e9n Gos\u00e1lbez, Professor of Chemical Systems Engineering at ETH Zurich. He led the study, which was recently published in the journal\u00a0Green Chemistry<\/a>, together with Javier P\u00e9rez-\u200bRam\u00edrez, Professor of Catalysis Engineering at ETH.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Standard practice for sustainability assessments in the chemical industry today focuses on calculating a given product\u2019s carbon footprint \u2013 from raw material through production to disposal. Known as life-\u200bcycle analysis, this allows a comparison between different types of production. However, it is of limited use in assessing global impacts on natural ecosystems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we focus only on solutions that exclusively reduce carbon emissions, we may actually end up shifting environmental burdens to other categories and causing some collateral damage.” <\/p>Javier P\u00e9rez-\u200bRam\u00edrez, Professor of Catalysis Engineering<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Such conventional life-\u200b\u200bcycle analyses of chemicals often take only CO2<\/sub> emissions into account, which bothers P\u00e9rez-\u200b\u200bRam\u00edrez. \u201cClimate change isn\u2019t the only problem,\u201d he says. \u201cIf we focus only on solutions that exclusively reduce carbon emissions, we may actually end up shifting environmental burdens to other categories and causing some collateral damage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGreen\u201d Chemicals are not always sustainable<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

P\u00e9rez-\u200b\u200bRam\u00edrez uses the example of biofuels to explain how such ecological collateral damage can occur: When fossil fuels are replaced by plant-\u200b\u200bbased raw materials such as corn or wood (known as first-\u200b\u200bgeneration biofuels), significantly less new CO2<\/sub> is released into the atmosphere. However, it takes large areas of arable land, a lot of water and also fertilisers to produce the required biomass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, the stated aim of the two researchers was to perform a more comprehensive life-\u200b\u200bcycle assessment for chemicals \u2013 and in doing so, to establish a direct link to the Earth\u2019s ecological budget. They base their calculations on the so-\u200bcalled planetary boundaries. This scientific concept describes the impact of humans on nine key Earth-\u200b\u200bsystem processes, such as biodiversity loss and changes in land use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The planetary boundaries were defined by the scientific community in 2009. Using seven of a total of nine boundaries, the present study calculated the environmental impact of chemicals. \u00a9 ETH Zurich<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In their study, the scientists calculated whether and to what extent the global production of a total of 492 chemicals exceeds seven of these limits. For this purpose, the ETH researchers linked existing data and accounting models on raw material procurement, the supply chain and the various production steps at a global level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They found that more than 99 percent of the chemicals studied exceed at least one planetary boundary. Just three of the chemicals can be considered environmentally sustainable in absolute terms according to this new method.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Petroleum is the <\/em>basic ingredient of chemicals<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe fact that almost all the chemicals studied were harmful to the environment hardly surprised us,\u201d P\u00e9rez-\u200bRam\u00edrez says. After all, more than 85 percent of the basic carbon structure that makes up most chemicals today is still obtained from fossil raw materials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf the basic chemicals are produced from petroleum, then all the products made from them won\u2019t be sustainable either,\u201d P\u00e9rez-\u200bRam\u00edrez says. The planetary boundaries strongly connected to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions \u2013 climate change, ocean acidification, and biosphere integrity \u2013 are by far the ones that chemicals exceed the most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the authors of this work were surprised to find that some chemicals exceed the Earth\u2019s biophysical limits more than 100 times over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Towards sustainable production processes<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It has long been recognized that the chemical industry must move away from using fossil raw materials. But now, this study has, for the first time, quantified the problem at a global scale. \u201cThe message is clear: we can and must act now,\u201d Guill\u00e9n Gos\u00e1lbez says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the advisory meetings the ETH professor holds with chemical companies, practically all of them show a willingness to make their production more environmentally friendly \u2013 for economic reasons, too: \u201cSustainability has become a global trend and a topic that more and more customers are paying attention to,\u201d Guill\u00e9n Gos\u00e1lbez says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bringing about a fundamental change to production processes is ultimately a question of cost. \u201cIt\u2019s essential for companies to know in advance how much changes in a particular production step will increase the sustainability of their product,\u201d Guill\u00e9n Gos\u00e1lbez explains. To date, the industry has had hardly any applications with which to perform such an absolute sustainability assessment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is why the researchers would like to further develop their method so that it can be used not only to evaluate existing production processes but also to optimize the potential of new approaches. \u201cIdeally, this will allow us to find the best \u2013 which is to say the most resource-\u200befficient \u2013 mix of the different production technologies for a chemical,\u201d P\u00e9rez-\u200bRam\u00edrez says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Original publication<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Tulus V, P\u00e9rez-\u200bRam\u00edrez J, Guill\u00e9n Gos\u00e1lbez G. Planetary metrics for the absolute environmental sustainability assessment of chemicals, Green Chemistry<\/em>, 27. Oktober 2021, 23. DOI:\u00a010.1039\/D1GC02623B<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than 99 percent of the most widely produced chemicals aren\u2019t sustainable; their production is based on fossil raw materials and consumes more natural resources than the Earth can provide in the long term. This is the conclusion of a sustainability analysis developed at ETH Zurich, which for the first time provides absolute figures on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"For the first time, researchers at ETH Zurich have calculated in absolute figures the extent to which the production of chemicals is currently interfering with nature worldwide \u2013 and the results are staggering. In addition to greenhouse gas emissions, the new method also takes land use and freshwater consumption into account","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[5838,13087,6406,10408],"supplier":[277,9018],"class_list":["post-104734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-bioeconomy","tag-climate","tag-environment","tag-greenchemistry","supplier-eidgenoessische-technische-hochschule-zuerich-eth-zuerich","supplier-green-chemistry-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104734\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104734"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=104734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}