RETHINKING GOVERNANCE
Green chemistry Russel Mills Global Director of Energy and Climate Change Policy, The Dow Chemical Company; Chair, Environment Committee of the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD (BIAC)
Economic growth over the past decades has led to improved quality of life, increased prosperity and longer, healthier lives in nearly all countries. Resource constraints are making us realise that to continue to enjoy these benefits we will have to change course towards more sustainable or greener growth. As the world’s population increases and emerging economies expand, we will need new solutions to meet society’s basic needs for energy, water, housing, food, health and transportation. These solutions will simply not come about without the direct and active contribution from the private sector. According to one textbook definition, green growth refers to fostering economic growth and development while ensuring that the earth’s natural assets continue to provide the resources and environmental services on which our well-being relies. But what does green growth actually mean for an industry like chemicals? The chemicals industry faces both challenges and opportunities in this context. On the one hand, it is a large, energy intensive sector and as such contributes to global greenhouse gas emissions. On the other hand, it is one of the most important providers of solutions to save energy and reduce emissions. The industry has a long track record in pursuing energy efficiency improvements; for example at the Dow Chemical Company, cumulative energy savings since 1994 have reached more than US$9 billion and helped assure our economic viability.
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OECD Yearbook 2012 © OECD 2012
We need to focus on lifecycle approaches that address both production and consumption emissions. While production emissions have decreased in most developed economies, household consumption emissions have increased. Household emissions now represent our biggest opportunity for greening our economies. Making green growth a reality for modern economies depends on advanced materials and the chemistry on which they rely. The chemicals industry is therefore focusing on how connecting chemistry and innovation with the principles of sustainability can best address the global challenges we are facing. At the Dow Chemical Company, for example, Styrofoam brand insulation emits one unit of CO2 during production, but saves more than 200 units of CO2 during the use
Making green growth a reality for modern economies depends on advanced materials and the chemistry on which they rely phase. More generally, the future of energy is increasingly connected to innovative technologies and materials from chemistry, from advanced batteries for next-generation hybrid cars to solutions for capturing greenhouse gases. Tomorrow’s chemical advances will also be indispensible for breakthrough solutions to meet the world’s need for clean, sustainable and affordable energy. The Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD (BIAC) has underlined that there should be no separation between green and traditional industries, as sectors do not exist in isolation but depend on each other. More sustainable clean energy options such as cost-effective wind turbines rely on progress in composites which in turn rely on advances in chemistry. Green growth policies should therefore aim at fostering innovation, entrepreneurship and competitiveness across all sectors. They should focus on improvements that are both economically efficient and environmentally effective and take into account life-cycle approaches and impacts. Recognising the close links between sectors and between our economies, we now need to concentrate increasingly on