Climate change and striving for climate neutrality is one of the biggest challenges for mankind in the 21st century. The chemical industry has made good progress towards GHG neutrality by 2050, and will continue to pursue this goal. In order to reach it, we need time and investments to develop new technologies, and large amounts of renewable energy at affordable prices.
Achieving climate neutrality is only one facet of the Green Deal. The transition to a circular economy is another big goal. As a material supplier, Covestro plays a key role in enabling a Circular Economy for plastic and in realizing a sustainable future. We aim to become a fully circular company. This vision does not only entail engaging with diverse partner institutions, fostering innovative recycling technologies, maximizing our use of renewable energy and, ultimately, expanding our alternative raw material utilization. It means to steer all our efforts towards becoming carbon neutral as a company. This transition is needed across industries without doubt, but it can only be successfully and efficiently implemented if supporting structures enable the private sector to drive positive change.
Now, a different acute crisis is hitting the whole planet as we can feel in our daily lives, the Covid-19 pandemic. The economy needs post-corona economic stimulus and investment programs and it makes sense to gear them towards climate protection for the longer term in an intelligent manner, while ensuring measures for a short-term economic recovery. Both a purely ecological orientation or a purely economic orientation would be misleading as sustainability always contains a balance of economic, environmental and social components. Therefore we prefer speaking of a “Sustainable Future Deal” instead of just a “Green Deal” or “Green Recovery”. Only then can we make sure to make the world a brighter place for us and future generations.
Lynette Chung, Head of Global Sustainability of Covestro AG
