Water drops in a glass.
2/22/2024

Kemira as a sustainable investment

Kemira is a global leader in sustainable chemical solutions for water intensive industries. Growing environmental and social awareness is a significant growth driver for Kemira’s business: more efficient use of natural resources, a growing circular economy focus on biodegradable and recyclable products, tightening environmental regulation as well as climate change mitigation all drive demand for Kemira’s products. In 2023,  59% of Kemira’s revenue was generated from products that improve customer resource-efficiency.

How do our products make the world a better place?

person stacking flat corrugated boxes at a warehouse

Pulp & Paper

Kemira’s products improve the manufacturing process and enable better resource-efficiency. For example, our chemistry is helping to improve recycled fiber quality and content, energy and water efficiency in paper mills.

Case: Lightweight packaging

With our strength chemicals, our customers can make their packaging lighter yet stronger. Light weight results in lower logistics cost and thus environmental footprint.

Industry & Water

In municipal and industrial water treatment, chemical water treatment provides the most compact plant and smallest possible environmental footprint.

Case: Sludge dewatering

With our chemicals, our customers are able to reduce the water content in sludge. As a result, demand for logistics is lower resulting in better environmental footprint.

Circularity

We are committed to enabling a renewable solutions circular economy and adopting circular business practices across our own operations.

We can reduce unnecessary costs by reducing the amount of waste we generate. At the same time, sourcing industrial by-products has the potential to both reduce our raw material costs and alleviate pressure on natural resources.

In 2023, 47% of raw materials used in Kemira’s global manufacturing came from recycled and renewable sources or industrial by-products. In our inorganic coagulants line, 70–80% of raw material comes from recycled sources (scrap iron and spent pickle liquor). These are used in the treatment of wastewater, drinking water, and in many other industrial water treatment applications.

Sustainability KPIs

Kemira updated its sustainability targets in 2021 and identified five themes as sustainability focus areas: safety, people, water, circularity and climate.

*total recordable injury frequency per million hours
**kilograms of disposed production waste per metric tonnes of production
***Scope 1: Direct greenhouse gas emissions from Kemira’s manufacturing sites, e.g. the generation of energy and emissions from manufacturing processes. Scope 2: Indirect greenhouse gas emissions from external generation and purchase of electricity, heating, cooling, and steam.

You can find more information on the five key themes on Kemira’s sustainability pages.

From United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), Clean Water and Sanitation (SDG 6), Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG8), Responsible consumption and production (SDG12) and Climate action (SDG 13) are the most relevant to Kemira.

Kemira supports the ambition of the UNFCCC Paris Agreement, UN Guiding Principles on business and Human Rights as well as UN Global Compact.

Kemira has been widely acknowledged for its commitment to sustainability

Kemira actively participates in various sustainability surveys. Below a list of some sustainability rankings for Kemira vs. chemical industry benchmark.

Kemira has ambitious climate target and commits to Science Based Targets initiative

Kemira has ambitious target for significant reductions in its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by the year 2030 in line with the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi)*. Kemira commits to 50% cut in the emissions from its own operations (Scope 1 and 2 emissions**) by the end of 2030, compared to a 2018 baseline. This target is in line with limiting global warming to 1.5°C, which is currently the most ambitious criteria for setting science-based targets.

Kemira’s Scope 1&2 emission reduction ambition increases significantly from 30% 2030 target to 50% 2030 target. Furthermore Kemira commits to developing a quantified near-term Scope 3 target within the timeframe set by the Science Based Target initiative framework. Kemira will submit these updated targets to be validated by the SBTi.

Read more on the Press Release of June 15, 2022

*)Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), a partnership between CDP, the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), drives ambitious climate action by enabling companies to set science-based emissions reduction targets.

**) Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions as defined by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. Scope 1 and 2 cover the emissions related to our own production. Scope 3 includes all other relevant emissions throughout the value chain.

Sustainability reporting

Kemira’s sustainability reporting follows the Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) guidelines. The information in the Sustainability report has been externally assured by an independent third party. Also Kemira’s Annual Report contains sustainability related topics. Learn more:

Kemira’s Sustainability report 2023
Kemira’s Annual report 2023

Renewable solutions strategy progressing

Our path towards EUR 500 million renewable solutions revenue target advances via 4 tracks

Key policies Policy owner Link to priorities
Code of Conduct Group General Counse People, Safety
Product stewardship policy Head of Product Stewardship and Regulatory Affairs Safety
Trade compliance policy Head of Product Stewardship and Regulatory Affairs Safety
Intellectual Property Rights policy Chief Technology Officer Water, Circularity and Climate
EHSQ policy (including Energy policy) Head of Environment, Health, Safety and Quality Safety, Water, Circularity and Climate
Sourcing and procurement policy EVP, Operational Excellence Safety, Water, Circularity and Climate
Logistics and transportation policy Head of Global Supply Chain Management Safety and Climate
Recruitment policy Compensation policy EVP, Human Resources People
Global competition law compliance policy Group General Counsel People
Gifts, entertainment and anti-bribery policy Group General Counsel People