SABIC’s global collaborations – from technology to process to commercial – with industry and academic leaders enable us to offer more sustainable and robust solutions to the innovation challenges facing our customers, helping to ensure their long-term success.
Expanding the availability of advanced bio-fuels will help gasoline producers meet their targets and result in high-efficiency fuels. This year, through a partnership with BioMCN, we started producing bio-MTBE (methyl tert-butyl ether) at a site in Geleen, the Netherlands. Bio-MTBE, produced out of second-generation bio-methanol, is a renewable fuel additive that can be blended with gasoline for a product that results in a more than 50 percent reduction in CO2 emissions compared to its pure fossil-fuel alternative.
In 2018, we undertook a high-level screening of SABIC’s existing product portfolio to identify which parts of the portfolio have sustainability benefits and challenges. The flexible packaging and mass transportation markets became candidates for such portfolio sustainability analysis (PSA) based on a World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) framework.
The preliminary PSA result of the flexible-packaging segment indicates that 25 percent of the portfolio has strong sustainability-related benefits, 47 percent is neutral with neither benefits nor challenges, and 28 percent has one or more challenges. We will continue to apply this methodology for more complete portfolio coverage in the coming years.