Celanese Corporation, a global specialty materials and chemical company, announced it has received the American Chemistry Council’s (ACC) 2024 Sustainability Leadership Award, which recognizes exemplary products, technologies and initiatives that help advance sustainability.

Celanese earned the award in the “Circularity” category for its active carbon capture and utilization (CCU) project at its Clear Lake, Texas, manufacturing site as part of its Fairway Methanol joint venture with Mitsui & Co., Ltd. The project is expected to capture 180,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) industrial emissions and produce 130,000 metric tons of low-carbon methanol annually.

"Our vision at Celanese is to improve the world and everyday life through our people, chemistry and innovation and this award is a huge honor for us,” said Lori Ryerkerk, CEO of Celanese. “This CCU project is a strong example of how our talented teams are using the building blocks of chemistry to create a new solution that is now helping our customers reach sustainability goals and targets that were previously out of reach.”

The CCU project takes CO2 industrial emissions that would otherwise be emitted into the atmosphere from both Celanese and third-party sources and applies reduced-carbon-intensity hydrogen to chemically convert the captured CO2 into a methanol building block used for downstream production. This low-carbon input is then used to reduce traditional fossil fuel-based raw materials to produce a wide range of ECO-CC products that can benefit most major industries. The International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) also recently certified Low Carbon CCU (carbon capture and utilization) Methanol under the ISCC Carbon Footprint Certification (CFC) system.

"We are honored to receive this incredible recognition from ACC,” said Mark Murray, Senior Vice President, Acetyls at Celanese. “Our teams have worked hard to enable us to provide sustainable solutions that are being explored across a number of industries and we’re excited for what’s ahead for both this technology and our customers that will utilize ECO-CC products to move toward a circular economy.”