Arkema vows to reduce CO2 in line with Paris Agreement

Materials producer Arkema SA has announced a new climate plan, aligned with the Paris Agreement, to reduce its carbon footprint.

The Paris Agreement calls for measures that will keep any rise in the global temperature this century to remain "well below 2º Celsius above pre-industrial levels and efforts will be pursued to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5º Celsius."

To help reach that goal, Arkema Group, based in Colombes, France, said in a Feb. 25 statement that it has launched a move to reduce its absolute greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 38 percent in 2030, compared to 2015. The company acknowledges that the plan is an ambitious one. For it to succeed, the impact of GHG emissions will, more than ever, figure as a dominant factor in the company's every decision, "whether for industrial investments, energy supply contracts or acquisition projects," Chairman and CEO Thierry Le Hénaff said.

"We're calling on each of our business lines to contribute to this reduction," he added.

Arkema has long been committed to the fight against global warming. The company achieved its previous 2025 target — a 50 percent reduction compared to 2012 in direct intensive greenhouse gas emissions — in 2018.

Under the new commitment, Arkema is seeking to reduce its absolute emissions by more than 1.7 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent compared to 2015. The aim is to emit less than 3 million metric tons in 2030, regardless of the increase of its production volumes, or a decrease of 38 percent over 15 years.

The climate plan was drawn up following a detailed study of growth projections for the company's activities, Arkema officials said, and takes in plans to improve industrial processes and reduce energy consumption, and the possibility of purchasing electricity from increasingly low-carbon sources.