Creating possibilities for a sustainable world
The lubricant industry can play an important role in creating a sustainable future. At Oil Additives, we are taking action to drive growth of sustainable lubricants.
At Oil Additives, sustainability is the central theme of our purpose – Creating possibilities for a sustainable world.
We are taking action as a partner to our customers to drive growth of sustainable lubricants.
We will become carbon neutral for all our production sites in 2021, and reduce our specific CO2 footprint 30% by 2025.
We perform portfolio sustainability assessments, quantified by life cycle analyses, to further drive a sustainable product portfolio development, also engaging our customers in product portfolio reviews.
The sustainability effort by Oil Additives is demonstrated in three areas:
We are reducing the CO2 footprint – 30% by 2025 - of our products through selection of raw materials and by becoming gate-to-gate carbon neutral. For that, usage of green electricity and compensation certificates are short-term levers together with a long-term plan for carbon emission reduction.
We are actively developing our product portfolio towards more sustainable products over the full life cycle, by phasing out challenged products, fostering growth with leading products and commercializing new sustainable products.
We aim to engage customers in product portfolio reviews utilizing portfolio sustainability assessments reviews to drive product selection that will help reduce their carbon footprint as well as further drive growth of sustainable lubricants.
THE WAY TO CONVERSION FREE (DEFORESTATION FREE) PALM OIL SUPPLY CHAINS 2023
Consequently, we’re making a significant effort to implement and improve sustainability standards along the supply chain of renewable feedstocks. At Evonik Industries, we’ve already established clear procurement strategies and risk management systems for our critical raw materials, such as conflict minerals, and renewable raw materials, such as palm oil. At Oil Additives, we`ve therefore defined Responsible Sourcing Criteria for supply chains fall the way to the plantation level. We carry out ongoing supplier evaluations and promote those suppliers who best meet our targets of responsible sourcing, traceability and ecological compliance. These include:
- Traceability of palm oil derivatives to plantations or mills.Compliance with the laws of the country of operation. Suppliers must confirm their legal compliance long the supply chain with a focus on anti-corruption and land-tenure rights.
- Expanding palm plantations must ensure conservation and restoration of High Conservation- and Carbon Stock areas and peatlands.
- Renouncement to peat clearance for new plantations and the adoption of a responsible maintenance system of peatland in existing plantation.
- Compliance and informed consent from indigenous peoples and local communities regarding new plantations, focusing on land-grabbing procedures and ILO rights of workers.
- Suppliers of palm-based products must either be a member of the RSPO or comply with the sourcing rules set by the RSPO (RSPO principles & criteria 2018) and validated by external partners.
In addition to these supply chain criteria, we’ve also adopted the following self-imposed commitments:
- To improve the social and educational level of small-holders and make a positive contribution to the livelihood of underprivileged people associated with palm oil production.
- To economically integrate indigenous peoples and communities.
- To improve processes and feedstock efficiency.
- To implement innovative forest and peatland management systems.
And by 2023, we want to be exclusively using traceable and sustainable edible oil esters and primary derivatives of palm oil.
We know the challenges of responsible sourcing, but meeting these challenges is not something we can achieve on our own. It’s yet another reason why we joined the Action for Sustainable Derivatives (ASD) as founding member within Transitions and BSR.
Because for us, transparency is the major component for responsible sourcing. And it is only when we have completely achieved this, that ecological and social efforts will be able to go hand in hand into the future.