Environment

Reduce our environmental footprint

Arkema’s continuous improvement process is based on a corporate policy implemented at our industrial facilities, and on the deployment of specific action plans.
To achieve a level of performance that exceeds the requirements of applicable regulations, Arkema has developed an environmental management system that is implemented across our industrial facilities. Most of our plants have earned environmental certification, usually based on the ISO 14001 standard, chosen because it is an international benchmark. However, depending on the local situation, some sites have selected other standards, such as RCMS (Responsible  Care Management System).

Each Arkema plant uses a codified method to pinpoint its environmental impact (water, air, waste, noise, odors or soil), and establishes its priorities for action. Regular environmental analyses track our progress and set new improvement targets. Each facility thoroughly monitors its discharges, emissions and waste. All environmental data is collected, compiled centrally, and published annually in the Company’s Annual and Sustainable Development Report.

Minimizing the environmental impact of industrial operations also means optimizing the use of natural resources, especially water, energy and raw materials. Arkema’s plants therefore strive to use only the amount of water necessary for their operations. Energy efficiency is also a core operating principle of our facilities. New production plants factor energy management into their choice of processes and equipment from the design stage. Although substantial investments have been made in older plants since the early 80s, further innovations are still yielding significant gains.

• Safe and environmentally-sounder processes: the example of an American facility
• Site remediation in Spain, in the Castile Province

Continue to reduce emissions

Concerned with maintaining water and air quality and mitigating climate change, Arkema pays special attention to three indicators: chemical oxygen demand (COD) in water emissions, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and greenhouse gas emissions, essentially CO2 and HFCs.

Reduction at source, improved processes, optimized effluent treatment, training, operator awareness, and the installation of sophisticated continuous analysis devices have played a major part in reducing water and air emissions at our industrial facilities.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is another priority. As a major energy consumer directly concerned about carbon dioxide emissions, Arkema is continuously improving the energy efficiency of its installations. Since 1990, the baseline year for the Kyoto Protocol establishing improvement targets for industrialized nations, Arkema has cut greenhouse gas emissions by a factor of three. To pursue its efforts in an area so critical to the planet’s future, Arkema joined other French companies in 2003 in making a voluntary commitment, through the Association des Entreprises pour la Réduction de l’Effet de Serre (AERES), to quantified targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions over the period 2003-2007.

• Environmentally-aware processes: the Balan EVA plant
• A raft of improvements to significantly reduce COD: the example of the La Chambre plant

Environmental indicators 

The table hereafter shows the levels of emissions and volumes of hazardous and non-hazardous discharges produced by the Group's businesses in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Source: data for the VOC, GHG and COD environmental indicators were audited by Bureau Veritas Certification.