Production
Goals & Outlook
Production
Long-Term Goals
Lower our average specific energy consumption (amount of energy per net production volume) by 50 percent, with 2007 as the base year.
Corporate entity: WACKER Germany
Deadline: 2022
Reduce specific CO2 emissions by 15 percent per metric ton of net production – while maintaining a comparable product portfolio – from 2012 onward.
Corporate entity: WACKER Germany
Deadline: 2022
Reduce specific dust emissions (per metric ton produced) by 50 percent, with 2012 as the base year.
Corporate entity: Groupwide
Deadline: 2022
Reduce specific emissions of relevant volatile organic compounds (VOCs per metric ton produced) by 25 percent, with 2012 as the base year.
Corporate entity: Groupwide
Deadline: 2022
No incidents with relevant environmental inputs
Corporate entity: Groupwide
Deadline: Annually
Implementation status:
Goal was achieved in 2017. The loss event at the Charleston, USA site in September 2017 did not cause any relevant substance input into the environment.
Five metric tons of vinyl acetate (webpage available in German only; easily flammable and German Water Pollution Class 2) leaked from a pipe that had not been closed following maintenance work at the Burghausen site in April 2018. A relevant amount soaked into pervious ground and was eliminated by local remediation measures.
New Goals
Reduce specific NOx emissions by 25 percent, with 2012 as the base year.
Corporate entity: Groupwide
Deadline: 2022
The long-term goals regarding CO2 emissions and energy consumption that applied at WACKER Germany have now been extended to the WACKER Group.
Reduce specific CO2 emissions by a third, with 2012 as the base year.
Corporate entity: Groupwide
Deadline: 2030
Reduce specific energy consumption by half, with 2007 as the base year.
Corporate entity: Groupwide
Deadline: 2030
Reduce specific energy consumption by an annual 1.5 percent.
Corporate entity: business divisions
Deadline: annual (operational target)
Future Topics
Energy
We are modernizing the Burghausen site’s combined heat and power (CHP) plant for electricity and steam generation by installing a new gas turbine. This turbine operates more efficiently and more environmentally soundly than the existing one, which is almost 20 years old. Our investment helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions further. With an output of 130 MW, the new gas turbine achieves fuel efficiency of more than 86 percent.
By making this investment, we will reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by some 300,000 metric tons a year compared to the current public energy mix. Thanks to improved waste-gas technology, emissions of nitrogen oxide (NOx) will drop by around 30 percent.
Water
We have been taking various measures since the start of 2019 to help improve our rating in the CDP’s Water Security Report (2017 reporting year).
Nature Conservation
We launched a project in 2019 to upgrade the ecological status of unused green spaces at the Burghausen site with the aim of improving the habitat for insects.
A section of the embankment of the Alz canal near the Burghausen site is being cultivated as a wildflower meadow to encourage local flora and attract insects. As the owner of this land, we are using this project to stimulate ecological development in partnership with the Landschaftspflegeverband Altötting (Altötting Landscape Conservation Association; German-language website only). The project is supported by the Bavarian Environment Ministry’s landscape conservation program.