Upfront investments into sustainability initiatives is a big challenge, says S. Sunil Kumar, President, Henkel India while explaining further: “Be it solar, biogas or other initiatives that we are working upon in our factories, and also the standards and accreditations, these things take time, money, commitment and mindset change. It is important that it should not be taken as a challenge but on the contrary keeping a bigger picture of the planet in mind. We should be able to commit upfront. The real challenge is how do you orient the mindset of those involved towards sustainability and that is important. At Henkel, we also have a program for sustainability called ‘Catch them Young’ where we go to schools and inculcate awareness about sustainable practices in a simple manner. It is important to promote sustainability behavior right from the beginning.”

Opportunity part of it is fantastic, adds Sunil Kumar. “When we speak to customers or partners on green chemistry or sustainability, awareness and interest levels too are very high. In adhesive space, we are everywhere but not really visible yet very relevant. We, therefore, need a different adhesive industry that keeps the safety of people as paramount. In the healthcare space, we have innovated smart medical patches which are used to capture the real time data on the status of various health parameters such as heartbeat or temperature.”

Vinod Paremal, Regional President of the Indian Subcontinent, Evonik said, “The scaling up of existing projects is a big challenge. Both Siemens and Evonik are contributing their core competencies that respectively are electrolysis and biotechnology for artificial photosynthesis. The project ‘Rheticus’ being spearheaded in the North Western part of Germany combines chemical and biological processes to use electricity from renewable sources and bacteria to convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into specialty chemicals. This is an ongoing project and we are looking forward to it getting completed as soon as possible and that is the challenge.”

The benefits are multi-folded, says Paremal as he talks about opportunities. “Using CO2 as raw material to produce different types of chemistries is a really great step forward if we could achieve economic scale up.”

The challenge for any chemical company including Deepak is not to take sustainability as just a buzzword, opines Maulik Mehta, CEO & Executive Director, Deepak Nitrite Limited. He goes on to explain: “It is very easy to get emboldened and say that we will ensure sustainability but only taking it from investor or customer point of view. In actuality, that kind of sustainability wouldn’t be sustainable. So, if you really want to ensure sustainability, you should look at it from the perspective of productivity and profitability as well. I would say that unless the Indian companies know how to do it, they must refrain from investing in technologies that are at a very nascent stage.

“Not only is green chemistry growing, it also enjoys a really fantastic outlook and network effect. It has growing consumption and with focus on water conservation, clean energy from solar, water and hydrogen, nowadays everybody is talking about. There is a lot of opportunity because we as a country on one hand are productivity and cost driven yet on the other hand for Indians money is not cheap as any other country. India must only invest into technology which is well proven. If that is not happening, we cannot invest just because it is the flavor of the season,” adds Maulik.

Coming from agriculture waste processing industry, the biggest challenge for Praj is availability of feedstock and biomass for technologies, mentions Dr. Pramod Kumbhar, President & CTO, Praj Industries Limited. “It is important for us to aggregate the biomass and raise it for use in various processes. It is a challenge we are looking forward to addressing.”

Speaking of opportunities, Kumbhar adds, “Bio-plastics are still not competitive to fossil fuel based chemicals and we are taking it as an opportunity as people are looking at replacing the single use plastics. If we can get to the cost point where we can provide a low cost solution for customers, it will create a good opportunity. Government has brought down the 25% biofuel blending target to the year 2023. We see the production of ethanol from grains and starch and its blending as a big opportunity.”

At Godrej Agrovet, we touch the farmers’ lives in all possible ways through various verticals, says Dr. Kamlesh Pai Fondekar, Head -Research & Development, Godrej Agrovet Limited. “We are active in animal feed, fish feed, milk, chicken, and crop protection chemicals. We are also there in the palm oil category. We strongly believe in sustainability and therefore our efforts are in the direction of addressing the waste we generate.”

Explaining opportunity areas, Fondekar says, “We are very large producers of crude oil palm. We extract the crude oil from fresh food bunches, and in the process generate sledge, fibre, and empty shells. From the waste generated, what we try to do from empty shells is to create brickets of biomass for boilers which are used in the cement industry. Palm oil is dried and turned into a nutrient rich powder with good commercial value. Again the condensate we recover is used back in the process. Sledge is transformed into material that can be converted into products with good commercial value. Another area is Palm fibre, biomass and nutshell which is used in boilers as a fuel. We try to create value from the waste and our efforts have been well recognized by many leading institutes. Now the challenge before us is how can we make it better. Is this good enough value and can we do better? Can we get more valuable proteins from the waste? These are challenges we will be addressing.”

According to Mirik Gogri, Head Corporate Strategy, Aarti Industries Limited, one interesting challenge that he can foresee is accounting. “In the chemical industry, there are different chemical reactions for different products. For example, for one caustic product, you have hydrogen, chlorine and caustic itself. Now, how do you allocate the CO2 emission of that particular product? Do you allocate everything to caustic, or to hydrogen and chlorine? Why this is important is because as more and more customers will start asking about carbon labelling, there has to be standardized practice across the industry. Because, if the different matrices are chosen by different companies, suddenly there will be mismatches between what is actually being shown. This is relevant to us also as a company because we have a lot of isomers. If I have an isomer, how do I allocate my carbon footprint and as transparency increases, everybody would want to do it.”

Another challenge Gogri mentions is about carbon storage. “Once carbon capture picks up steam, usage is one aspect that will definitely help but does India have enough carbon storage?,” he asks, “Do we have geographical assets for CO2 storage? Do we have deep saline aquifers for storage as it would be an important step to be figured out?”