We are a large chemical manufacturer, and guaranteeing the safety of our products is paramount. It directly impacts the health and well-being of consumers, workers, and the environment. To ensure this safety, we must also ensure that our products are of the highest quality. Our commitment to manufacturing products of the highest quality reflects our dedication to safety, excellence, and integrity in everything we do.
Equally significant is our commitment, through innovation, to designing sustainability into the use of our products, to generate the most sustainable impact possible. We recognize the significant influence that our pigments and additives have in shaping our world, and we embrace this responsibility with a sense of purpose and integrity.
Whether it is developing sustainable enhancements, reducing our environmental footprint, or safeguarding the health and well-being of our customers, our Global Product and Application Development team strives to create products that meet market needs and contribute positively to society and the planet. Consequently, they are responsible for achieving our headline target by 2030. Through this progress, we aspire to be catalysts for a brighter, more sustainable future.
Sustainability in our products
We have embedded sustainability in our product development process for decades through dedicated research, innovation, and collaboration. Our commitment reflects a deep-seated belief in the power of our TiO2 pigments and performance additives to drive positive, sustainable change.
Among other benefits is the capability of our products to mitigate some of the effects of climate change. With benefits including reflective properties, UV protection, preservation of food products, pollution reduction, nature regeneration, and electric battery development, our products and co-products not only meet the needs of today but can also support the planet’s needs for generations to come.
Product carbon footprint calculation
As part of our ongoing commitment to reduce carbon emissions and support achieving global society’s net-zero ambitions, we must understand ways to reduce our products’ carbon footprints. We acknowledge that we have a responsibility to implement change within our operations and seek solutions within our value chain. From our customer base, we also recognize the need for transparent, accurate data relating to the carbon footprint of our products.
In partnership with Atos, a global leader in digital transformation, we sought to calculate the cradle-to-gate carbon footprint of our products. Using a methodology certified to the international best-practice standard ISO 14067:2018 for the carbon footprint of products, we developed a bespoke tool for accurately calculating product carbon footprints (PCF).
Launched in December 2022, this data-driven tool will enable us to identify emissions reduction initiatives of real value and help our customers understand their scope 3 emissions.
Following the tool’s launch in 2022, we began a pilot scheme at our Huelva site in Spain to calculate the carbon footprint of two of our plastic-grade product lines manufactured there.
The pilot was an great success, providing accurate data on the two product lines and helping us identify the aspects of the manufacturing process that produce the most emissions.
As a result of the pilot’s success, we have begun a global rollout of the scheme at all our TiO2 sites, as we know that the production of these product lines accounts for most of our manufacturing carbon emissions. Beginning at our Greatham site in the UK in October 2023, we are scheduled to complete the product carbon footprint project by the end of 2024.
After the PCF calculations are complete, we will begin a trend analysis to identify common themes across all sites that may be causing inefficiencies in the manufacturing process for TiO2 products. This will enable us to implement focused, strategic emissions reduction initiatives across our sites.
From 2025, we plan to begin PCF calculations at our other manufacturing sites to cover our different product ranges.
Progress and Impact
Case study: Customer sustainability survey
As a responsible business, we actively want to support our customers in contributing to their sustainability goals through the use of our products, just as we strive to engage our supply chain to advance collective sustainability objectives.
In 2022, we launched a pilot customer sustainability survey to better understand the sustainability priorities of Venator’s customer base and how our products serve our customers’ sustainability expectations. The constructive feedback from the initial statistical sample of customers has led us to plan a broader roll out to our wider customer base.
In the summer of 2023, we engaged our Sales team to initiate this roll out the survey, with the ambition to establish a baseline understanding to inform our work and co-create products with our customers. To date, we have engaged 170 international customers from across our coatings, plastics, printing inks, and fibers divisions.
We presented a questionnaire, which allowed us to determine a 2023 baseline for understanding our customers’ priorities, how Venator has helped meet them, and any progress they have made.
The questions covered five subject areas:
- People and safety
- Planet
- Regulation
- Products and innovation
- Sustainable procurement
Customers gave highly positive feedback on the survey and showed an appreciation that Venator was considering their business needs in a structured manner.
One of the main results we identified is that the most common first milestone year for customers’ emissions reduction target date is 2030. From this, it is apparent that our work on reducing scope 1 and 2 emissions supports our customers in lowering their scope 3 emissions. Additionally, the results correlated with Venator’s chosen goals when asked which UN SDGs our customers are aligned with. Ultimately, the results from the survey have given us strong indications of what customers expect to see from our products, particularly in the product innovation and co-product space.
The survey’s success has proven crucial in providing a pulse check to keep us aware of customer priorities and determine if our policies remain relevant to our customers’ evolving needs. From the baseline we gathered in 2023, we will expand the survey in 2024, assessing progress and any directional policy changes that are required to help meet our customers’ sustainability objectives and develop our program year on year.
