Explanation of Environmental Indicators
In 2018, direct emissions of carbon dioxide (Scope 1 of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol) declined by 3.6 percent year over year, mainly due to lower steam consumption at our Burghausen and Nünchritz sites. As a result, groupwide nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions fell by 2.9 percent.
Maintenance and project work at the Holla site’s baghouse caused total dust emissions to rise by 2.4 percent year over year in 2018. We still reduced our specific dust emissions by 48 percent, already nearly achieving our target of halving them from 2012 to 2020.
The very warm summer of 2018 meant we had to increase the throughput of cooling water to keep process temperatures in our Burghausen production plants at the required levels. That led to a 15-percent increase in water consumption. By optimizing waste water treatment at Burghausen, we achieved a reduction of around 6 percent in chemical oxygen demand (COD) and of 14 percent in halogenated organic hydrocarbons (AOX).
The groupwide 13-percent increase in waste resulted from higher volumes of nonhazardous waste due to, for example, construction activities at Burghausen and the León, Spain site’s inclusion in the report.
Higher output at Burghausen and Nünchritz entailed the procurement of additional third-party electricity, thus raising CO2 emissions. This was more than offset by reduced energy consumption at the Charleston site. The electricity to CO2 emissions conversion factors for power generation in Germany and the USA fell further (data as per CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion, 2018 Edition, International Energy Agency). Overall, these effects reduced indirect CO2 emissions from procured energy (Scope 2) by 8 percent.
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2017 |
2016 |
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Air |
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CO2 emissions1 |
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Direct (kt) |
1,194 |
1,239 |
1,277 |
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Indirect (kt)2 |
1,478 |
1,606 |
1,588 |
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NOX nitrogen oxides (t) |
1,810 |
1,860 |
1,970 |
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Non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs) (t) |
860 |
880 |
890 |
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Dust (t) |
284 |
278 |
515 |
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Water |
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Water use (thousand m3) |
227,510 |
197,430 |
207,930 |
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Chemical oxygen demand (COD) (t) |
1,230 |
1,310 |
1,210 |
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Halogenated organic hydrocarbons (AOX) (t) |
2.2 |
2.6 |
3.1 |
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Waste |
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Disposed of (t) |
49,690 |
41,400 |
38,640 |
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Recycled (t) |
133,060 |
120,420 |
114,080 |
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Hazardous (t) |
77,070 |
75,800 |
73,660 |
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Non-hazardous (t) |
105,680 |
86,020 |
79,060 |
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Measuring the Group’s carbon footprint is an important tool for improving climate protection. That is why – in addition to tracking our indirect greenhouse gas emissions from procured energy (Scope 2) since 2011 – we have been measuring, since 2012, all WACKER-relevant emissions along the value chain (Scope 3), generated, for example, by procured raw materials or by waste disposal and the transport of products.
In 2018, we once again forwarded our emissions data to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), which WACKER joined in 2007. In the CDP’s Climate Change Report for the chemical sector, Wacker Chemie AG achieved a B (Management) on a scale from A (Leadership) to D (Disclosure). Registered CDP users can download the details.