New Sustainability Programme
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
The European chlor-alkali industry has decided to continue its Sustainability Programme, although in a refined way. In 2001, the chlor-alkali industry was one of the first industrial sectors deploying a sustainability programme that monitors and reports on relevant parameters in the fields of health, safety and environmental protection. The new Programme will also focus on communication and outreach.
The European chlor-alkali industry,
represented by Euro Chlor, has decided to continue its
Sustainability Programme, although in a refined way. In 2001, the
chlor-alkali industry was one of the first industrial sectors
deploying a sustainability programme that monitors and reports on
relevant parameters in the fields of health, safety and
environmental protection. The new Programme will also focus on
communication and outreach.
The first
Sustainability Programme has delivered major improvements across a
broad range of our key impacts, and it has focused companies
throughout the sector on the areas where further improvements can
most beneficially be made.
Over the last 10 years, energy consumption
per tonne of chlorine has been reduced by some 10%. This
improvement has been due to advances in cell technology and in
more energy efficient ancillary equipment. Bearing in mind the
nature of the electro-chemical reaction which fixes the energy
required this is a major achievement.
Another important milestone of our past
programme was the reduction of mercury and chlorinated organics
emissions: about 60% of the total mercury emissions remaining in
2001 have now been eliminated. By the end of our second programme,
mercury emissions from the European chlor-alkali industry will have
ceased through the completion of the voluntary phase-out of its
mercury process by 2020. The 90% reduction of chlorinated organics
emissions from factories achieved in the 15 years prior to 2001
have now been extended to the point where they no longer constitute
one of our major impacts. Our past programme has also delivered
major improvements in the safety field in terms of reducing
lost-time injuries, process and transport incidents.
A new parameter has been adopted: the
number of hours of training per year per employee, expressed as the
average percentage of training hours within the total of man hours
work. Euro Chlor is convinced that well-trained workers are central
to good performance in the safety, health and environment areas. It
is part of Euro Chlor's mission to provide guidance in these
domains.
The outreach will enhance transparency,
educate the public and create more goodwill towards industry. Euro
Chlor will promote the sharing of experiences on communication with
site neighbours and other stakeholders as well as on best
practices between companies.
A second major activity within this
qualitative communications scheme will be the development, over
several years, of a comprehensive communications plan in order to
highlight to large and varied audiences the multiple benefits of
chlorine and its value chain.
Download
the new Sustainability brochure (PDF document) and visit the
Sustainable Development pages on this site.
Further
information:
Alistair J Steel, Executive Director, Tel:
+32 2 676 73 50,
Dirk Clotman, Communications manager, Tel. +32 473 83 79
64
Additional information on the European Chlor-Alkali sector and its
views on www.eurochlor.org
.
