Environment

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As an international business, with customers and operations in several countries, we recognize our responsibility to safeguard the environment. This means taking a long-term view and continuously adapting and investing in more circular processes to use resources more efficiently and minimize our adverse impacts.

Beyond Durable

Carbon black has been a part of human life for centuries and will continue to be integral to our lives for centuries to come. This is why we are taking a long-term view of innovation, and why sustainability must be central to our growth strategy.

Find out more about our five Purpose Principles

“I have a mantra: think until it hurts, then think a bit more. It’s how I approach Sustainable Operational Excellence at Birla Carbon, always looking for ways we can improve. Through our OpEx program, we’re identifying and investing in initiatives and technologies that will help us to reduce our environmental footprint on a global scale.”
David Nunez Global Technology Manager

Reducing our environmental footprint at every step of our process

Understanding our impact
We are committed to continually improving our environmental performance, and perform regular Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) to measure the impacts of every step of our carbon black production process, from sourcing feedstock to transporting the final product to our customers.
Life Cycle Assessments
Reducing our carbon footprint
As a global company, we take our responsibility to environmental stewardship seriously and have made strides to reduce our carbon footprint throughout our operations. We are increasing plant energy use efficiency, sourcing local feedstock oil to reduce transport emissions and recovering energy from our processes to be recycled back into our operations or sold to neighboring facilities.
Carbon stewardship
Responsible water use
Working in areas where water scarcity is an issue, we have developed a water strategy that identifies ways in which we can improve water use and reduce the strain we place on potable water sources.
Water
Innovative waste solutions
Although the quantity is relatively small, we generate waste at all stages of our industrial process, from manufacturing to packaging, and we are implementing strategies to reduce, reuse and recycle this waste.
Waste
Cutting air emissions
Our processes produce emissions, and we are responsible for ensuring we minimize these as much as possible. We monitor our emissions and continue to invest in new technologies to guarantee compliance with local regulations in the areas where we operate.
Air emissions

Environment: Progress towards our target

† In FY2018, we had two releases of carbon black/feedstock exceeding regulatory reporting limits to soil and one to air. The remaining releases were reported on a voluntary basis to regulatory authorities.

Record zero environmental releases year on year.

FY2016	FY2017	FY2018^†	FY2019	FY2020	FY2030 target
2	9	13	8	8	0

† In FY2018, we had two releases of carbon black/feedstock exceeding regulatory reporting limits to soil and one to air. The remaining releases were reported on a voluntary basis to regulatory authorities.

Feature stories

Automating processes in North Bend to conserve resources

We are updating our systems with automated controls where possible, to reduce our energy requirements and improve resource efficiency.

Taking steps to reduce our CO₂ footprint at Patalganga

Through concentrated efforts, our site at Patalganga reduced CO₂ emissions by 4% in FY2020 compared to FY2019.

How we are supporting the SDGs

To support the UN SDGs, we have aligned our approach to sustainability with the Aditya Birla Group Responsible Stewardship Framework and, through this, the UN Global Compact. We are taking steps to ensure we use resources such as water, energy and raw materials efficiently and responsibly while mitigating the impacts of our operations on climate change.

The SDGs we are supporting are: