Arkema shares sustainability targets

At its latest Capital Markets Day on 27 September 2023, Arkema revealed its plans to strengthen its decarbonisation initiatives as well as its financial targets. This followed the recent validation of Arkema’s emissions reduction plan by the Science-Based Targets Initiatives.

The initiative is part of an overall plan “to accelerate its organic sales growth in the medium term, by capitalising on its recent or future industrial investments in high value-added technological solutions serving fast-growing market segments supported by sustainable megatrends”. To achieve its ambitions, Arkema said that it “will place sustainability at the heart of its strategy” through five main drivers:

* Leveraging the strength of One Arkema to enhance employee empowerment and customer intimacy

* Achieving superior growth from sustainable innovation in five key submarkets driven by megatrends where it has built strong positions

* Ramping up recent capex, notably the biobased PA11 plant in Singapore and PVDF expansions, and carrying out new high-return projects in batteries, renewable energy, decarbonisation and bio-based products

* Further strengthening the portfolio with bolt-on acquisitions and finalising the divestment of the Intermediates business

* Driving manufacturing excellence including a strong focus on decarbonisation and digitalisation

By 2028, the company aims to achieve sales of around €12 billion with an elevated EBITDA margin of around 18%. This implies average organic sales growth of around 4%/year and average organic EBITDA growth at 7-8%/year in the 2024-28 period.

Arkema has also announced several initiatives driven in part by sustainability. By 2026, it will implement a patented purification technology at its acrylic monomers site in Carling, France, to improve operational efficiency, optimise resources and waste management, lower solvent use and reduce CO2 emissions by 20%. It has invested €130 million on this process, with help from the France 2030 programme.

Separately, the company is investing around €50 million to increase production of its Luperox brand of organic peroxides at Changshu, China, by 150% from early 2025. These are mainly used in as reaction initiators in polymers and components in the manufacture of photovoltaic panels. It had previously expanded Luperox capacity in India by 70% in 2022 and doubled capacity at the plant in Günzburg, Germany, which started up this summer.

Finally, Arkema is to invest a further €130 million to increase dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) capacity at Beaumont, Texas, from 2H 2025. DMDS, for which the company is the world market leader, is used mainly in biorefineries as an additive to convert vegetable oils and agro-food waste into biofuels, as well as in crop protection and as a raw material for sulfonyls, particularly in electronics. Further details were not given.