Syensqo: Bringing Circular Economy to the Chemical industry
Andre Nothomb
Executive Vice-President Head of Government & Public Affairs Asia Pacific Singapore Country Director Syensqo
How does Syensqo integrate circular economy principles into its business model and operations?
By design, the Circular Economy principles require redesigning entire business models from scratch. Chemistry adds a few specific challenges to economically recycle/reuse goods at the end of their lives: difficulty to separate chemical impurities, obtaining lower grade materials. Unlike with other Sustainability driven strategies, making progress comes at a slower pace. When Syensqo embarked on the Circular Economy bandwagon in 2018 (still part of Solvay, before the December 2023 Spin-off of the Group's Specialty Chemicals, thereby creating Syensqo), our Circular sales value reached just around 7% of total sales. In 2023, it grew to 13% with a declared objective of reaching 18% by 2030, nearly tripling from our starting point. This has to be seen under our multi-strategy ONE Planet sustainable development drive, where other concepts are being put to work, leading to sustainable solutions while not directly adhering to the Circular Economy principles. Composite materials in aerospace enable over 20% fuel reduction compared to traditional metallic construction, though their recycling challenges are offset be enhanced durability, delaying the need for recycling and indirectly supporting the Circular Economy.
What innovative approaches does Syensqo employ to promote resource efficiency throughout the product lifecycle?
One approach is to mimic nature’s processes industrially, as natural sources alone can’t meet global demand. For instance, vanilla beans from limited locations fulfill only 1-2% of global needs, prompting the development of chemical processes. Recent innovations, like fermenting rice husk, offer eco-friendly alternatives, aligning with Circular Economy principles. These biobased chemical processes are aligned with the Circular Economy principles. Besides this example, biotechnology will favorably transform all aspects of our lives. Syensqo is already applying this for many other businesses and developing more of them through our R&D. From the properties of inedible gum from Guar beans, a natural crop of semi desertic areas in Rajasthan, India, we produce all kinds of solutions for home and personal care all the way to the oil and gas industry, thereby eliminating far less sustainable traditional processes. Among the specialty polymers, i.e. plastics with exclusive properties, we produce a partially biosourced high performance polyamide made from non food biomass (and 100% renewable energy!) which is used in various electronic applications as well as automotive industry, including EVs, thanks to their lightweight and flame resistant features.
Could you share insights into Syensqo’s collaborative efforts with customers and partners to develop circular business approaches?
From these answers, the reader gets that without intimate collaboration with our application driven customers, it would not be possible for Syensqo alone to try our technologies effectiveness and economy at industrial scale. And all this collaboration derives from end-users, you and me, becoming so much more demanding in terms of sustainable products. Clearly, it's possible for small communities to live by relying on (almost) 100% mother nature solutions. But only science and collaboration will gradually allow the rest of us to attain global scale sustainability. At Syensqo, we are all Explorers towards this purpose.
