According to various reports, India is the world’s fourth biggest emitter of carbon dioxide after China, the US and the EU. Having promised to cut down its emissions to net zero by 2070, the country now targets 50% of its energy from renewable resources by 2030 and also reduction of total projected carbon emissions by one billion tonnes. In this backdrop, the Indian chemical companies too are stepping up efforts to lower emissions and meet their net-zero targets with some urgency. However, the challenges remain.

“Our company has committed itself to the path of net neutrality and aims to reduce SCOPE 1 and SCOPE 2 emissions in line with the SBTi norms. It is expected to happen in a phased manner and is the first milestone we are targeting,” said Shivang Mahadeviya, Head of Corporate Strategy and Sustainability, Tata Chemicals Limited.

“We are committed to a 30% reduction of our absolute emission of SCOPE 1 and SCOPE 2 by2030. We have already taken steps in this direction. The approach we are taking is divided into four areas, starting with energy optimization and efficiency management which is very critical to us. Second bucket for us is looking at the alternative switch and we have already witnessed some progress on that front which gives us stopgap solutions. It might not be leading us to target but could be an intermediate milestone for us to achieve. The third bucket that we are targeting is how we utilize the captured carbon. Fourth one is renewables and carbon neutral fuel which is very close to net neutrality,” said Mahadeviya. 

 “The ecosystem which is helping us to fix our targets in absence of any benchmarks or references established by authorities is very difficult for the company to go on for the journey on its own. To that extent, CDP-SBTi has helped us to get the milestones that we can constructively work on. We are of the firm belief that this is not an individual company’s belief but has to be implemented across the value chain. To say that we will become net zero at company level is not realistic because until and unless it happens across the value chain,” added Mahadeviya.

 Mahadevia was speaking along with other leading experts at the ‘NextGen Chemicals &Petrochemicals Summit 2022’ organized by Indian Chemical News on July 22, 2022. The panel discussion at the last session themed, ‘Achieving Net Carbon Zero Session’, was moderated by Deepak Mahurkar, Partner, PwC India.

“We have taken 2 tier steps. Under, Greater than Green we have taken 3 major initiatives. We are looking at 42% reduction of SCOPE 1 and SCOPE 2 emissions and 45% absolute reduction of SCOPE 3 emissions,” said Raju Kapoor, Director - Industry and Public Affairs, FMC India.

“We have taken a scientific approach to achieve the targets in line with SBTi net zero standards.  We are also aggressively implementing renewable sources of energy across FMC locations in 50 countries including India. Similarly, absolute reduction in terms of water use and waste reduction. We are developing the roadmap to achieve the emission targets. For that we are looking at partnerships with fellow companies, suppliers, customers, employees. We are promoting precision agriculture through our portfolio of products. A lot of work is being done on good agricultural practices,” mentioned Kapoor. 

“If you look at the stationary energy supply sources, worldwide 80% of them are fossil fuel based, You can make a nice difference with nuclear but fundamentally something has to be done with the fossil fuel. There are technologies available such as pre-combustion, post-combustion and Carbon sequestration but only a few can be used because you can’t cut down the 80% of the dependence on fossil fuel easily. Therefore, the ultimate goal must be to decarbonize the fossil fuel plants. For that CO2 needs to be sequestered and there is plenty of information available around the world. I am very familiar with the technologies that are working well but then there are challenges,” said Dr Klaus Brun, Director, Research & Development, Elliott Group.

 “For separating the CO2 that has been pent up in your process and process output, engines, turbines you need to compress it, put it in the pipeline, transport it and put it into the ground. Therefore, one will require both pipeline infrastructure and compression infrastructure. If you are transporting hydrogen as an alternative, the primary concern is not hydrogen transportation but CO2 transportation,” Dr Klaus added.

We have committed publicly that we will achieve net zero by 2040, said Dr. Mritunjay Chaubey, Global Vice President- Environment, Sustainability & Green Cell, UPL Limited.

Dr Chaubey explains further: “We have divided the targets into three parts. One is the short-term target, second is the mid-term target and the third one is the long-term target. In terms of short-term targets, we aim to reduce 25% carbon emission by 2025 from the 2020 baseline. The near term target is science based one with a commitment to reduce 62% emission by 2035. Long-term target is achieving carbon emission neutrality by 2040. Long back in 2016, we came out with a short term target of 30% reduction of carbon, water consumption and waste by 2020.”

“Since our product portfolio is aimed at fulfilling the needs of farmers in a sustainable way, we are devising ways to create the solutions for reducing the impact on the environment. We have brought an innovative product so that farmers could avoid the stable burning. In the last season, we have covered nearly 4 lakh 20 thousand acres where we have used our products. It is equivalent to avoiding close to 1 million tonnes of carbon emission. This is equivalent to meeting the emission goals under SCOPE 1 and SCOPE 2 global programmes,” said Dr Chaubey.

“Coming to our operations, we are first focusing on operational excellence and through innovative technology we have brought down our emissions. In the last 5 years we have brought down 27% carbon emission and in the next 5 years, we are again targeting 25% emission. And the second initiative we are taking is on renewable sources. We have a green power purchase agreement worth 67 megawatt and we are using the same. We have made it mandatory to use 25% biomass and reduce 20% fossil fuel. We also have a hydrogen development project at the basic innovation level. We aim to achieve 65% reduction in the emission levels by 2035 and neutrality by 2040,” added Dr Chaubey.

 “When we are looking at the elements of net zero and carbon neutrality, we are coming from a very inwards to outwards approach. The first stage we are looking at is the input cost. We have seen the government plan and we want to look at our intermediate target. The first target is to look at fossil fuel reduction. We are currently executing Rs 3,000 crore worth Capex at our Gujarat site but during this process we took a bold call of going 30 megawatt of renewable while commissioning 120 megawatt of fossil fuel power. Secondly we are looking at fuel mixing. We are now targeting 40% of biomass going into our utilities and a huge generation power plant which has more capacity to take input. The third element right now is capturing the blue gases at our Gujarat and Rajasthan sites. These are the broad elements that are in our hands,” said Ankur Singh, Head - Strategy & Business Development - Chemicals Division, DCM Shriram Limited. 

“Some of the incremental positions which we can take are C02. We have C02 coming out from our distillery units that we supply to the bottling plants. The market is yet to mature and the input cost needs to be still worked out. Being a realistic approach, we still believe that there is a lot of clout around carbon neutrality but we are not waiting for it. We are rather moving ahead,” Singh added. 

“For us the sustainability journey started in 2010. Therefore, this is not new to us. We have been taking sustainability initiatives regularly and defined steps towards the net zero journey,” said Samir Rawal, Regional Business Director, Indorama Ventures Oxides ANK.

 Rawal explained further: “We have clearly defined targets for 2025 and 2030 for reducing our carbon footprint. In terms of investment, we have committed US$ 2 billion by 2025 and US$ 7 billion by 2030 for improving our sustainability and reducing carbon footprint. In terms of approach, we are looking at reducing our energy intensity by 5% by 2025 and 15% by 2030; and adopt renewable electricity up to 10% by 2025 and 20% by 2030. We are looking at bio-based feedstock in a big way.”

"Being the largest manufacturer of PET bottles, we are looking at recycling 50 billion bottles by 2025 and 100 billion bottles by 2030. We aim to educate 10 million customers by 2030. We are working with suppliers for bio based feedstock. On the customer side, we have reputed companies, including the agrochemical ones who are our clients. We are looking at solutions through innovations to help them to reduce raw materials which are not environment friendly. There is an overall approach to reduce our carbon footprint,” added Rawal.

P. Rahul, Senior Manager (Hydrogen Energy), NTPC Renewable Energy Limited said: “ We have diversified into green hydrogen and renewable in a big way. We have created subsidiaries that are focusing on these areas. We were majorly coal based but We have built a broader portfolio with key priority areas. We have achieved 70 gigawatts in total but now we want to build the capacity up to 60 gigawatts by 2032. We have phased out less efficient projects to reduce carbon emission. Another pillar is carbon capture where we are utilizing a lot of processes to capture carbon. We are also doing afforestation in a big way as we have planted 37 million trees overall.”

We have picked up the target of 2070 and will be gradually increasing our energy mix and decarbonizing it. We are a pioneer in green hydrogen and have taken several pilot initiatives in green mobility. 8% of our facilities are carbon free. We are aligning with technology providers to create big commercial projects and thus be a leading exporter of green ammonia, added Rahul. 

In his comments, Deepak Mahurkar, Partner, PwC India said, “Most of the studies have highlighted the fact that targets set by the government are inadequate. For achieving the net zero, technologies across the world must be made available to the companies.”

 Well attended NextGen Chemicals & Petrochemicals Summit 2022 was supported by the leading names of the industry. The platinum partner was Elliot Group. Regulatory Knowledge Partner was GPC. Gold partners of the event included Ingenero, Premier Tech, Carbanio and Deepak Nitrite. Among the associate partners were PIP and Huntsman. The industry partners of the event included AMAI, Croplife India, and ACFI.