At its Responsible Care^® and Sustainability Conference 2024, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) honored six member companies and one external organization with its 2024 Sustainability Leadership Awards, recognizing innovative products, technologies and initiatives that help advance sustainability.

"ACC member companies are advancing sustainability in the chemical industry and creating innovative products, protecting the environment, promoting circularity, and engaging with their communities," said Chris Jahn, ACC President and CEO. "The exemplary achievements of these ACC members demonstrate the progress that the chemical industry is making to enable solutions to real-world sustainability challenges."

"ACC members are moving the needle on critical sustainability issues through innovation, collaboration, and technologies that enhance the safety and environmental impacts of our products and operations," said Mitchell Toomey, ACC Vice President of Responsible Care and Sustainability. "We are proud to recognize these ACC members and their collaborators that are having a meaningful impact on our society."

2024 Sustainable Leadership Award Winners

ACC recognized 2024 Sustainability Leadership Award winners in the following categories:

Product Safety, Innovation & Transparency Award

Products, processes or initiatives that promote safe use of chemicals, transparency, informed sustainability decision-making and innovation to reduce risk.

The paint shop in an automotive equipment manufacturing factory accounts for 50 to 70 percent of energy use in automotive assembly. PPG Industries Inc.'s ENVIRO-PRIME^® EPIC 300 helps reduce carbon dioxide emissions and lowers energy consumption in the automotive manufacturing process. ENVIRO-PRIME^® EPIC 300 can be applied to electric vehicle assemblies with heavier metal mass while also using less energy and heat. The result is reduced energy input by 11 to 13 percent and reduced CO₂ emissions, leading to improved decarbonization efforts while also producing cars with long-lasting corrosion resistance.

Environmental Protection Award
Products, processes or initiatives that address the environmental impacts of company products or operations.

EFC Gases & Advanced Materials has developed an innovative Neon Gas Recycling System that addresses a key environmental issue in semiconductor manufacturing. The industry relies heavily on the use of semiconductor-grade neon as a buffer gas in its deep-ultraviolet lasers, essential for chip fabrication. Given neon's natural scarcity in air, achieving such high purity requires an energy-intensive and costly process through the cryogenic distillation of liquid air. Neon is also highly susceptible to global shortages. EFC's approach tackles these sustainability challenges by capturing and recycling spent neon from the laser exhaust, enhancing supply chain resilience, reducing the environmental impact of neon production, and minimizing resource waste.

Circularity Award 

Products, processes or initiatives that promote circularity.

Celanese operates one of the world's largest active carbon capture and utilization (CCU) projects at its Clear Lake, Texas, site as part of its Fairway Methanol joint venture with Mitsui & Co., Ltd. The project expects to capture 180,000 metric tons of CO₂ emissions that would otherwise enter the atmosphere and produce 130,000 metric tons of low-carbon methanol annually. This low-carbon input is then used to reduce traditional fossil fuel-based raw materials to produce a wide range of Celanese ECO-CC products that can benefit most major industries. These products provide sustainable solutions that will help move toward a circular economy.

Social Responsibility & Community Engagement Award 
Initiatives and programs that help build and connect local communities, elevate standards of living, and promote equity, diversity, and inclusion.

DuPont's Clear into the Future^® (CITF) grant program is aimed at protecting and improving the natural environment through community engagement and education. The program is an employee-driven initiative that provides funding for projects in communities served by DuPont that are aligned with CITF's mission to drive positive impact by protecting the environment and empowering communities to thrive. All CITF projects are aligned with one or more key priority areas, including climate change adaptation and mitigation, water stewardship, circular economy, and biodiversity.

External Collaborator Award 

Recognizing an organization that has collaborated with an ACC member on an initiative that has made significant contributions to drive sustainability and innovation.

Cyclyx is a post-use plastic innovator that develops solutions to find new recycling options for plastic waste. Cyclyx is a joint venture among Agilyx and ACC members ExxonMobil Product Solutions Company and LyondellBasell. Cyclyx addresses a critical missing link in the plastic waste supply chain by implementing 10to90^® all-plastic collection landfill-diversion connecting community programs. Cyclyx's ability to chemically fingerprint plastic creates new recycling possibilities for various advanced recycling technologies. A wider variety of plastic materials, including hard-to-recycle materials like used food packaging, synthetic grass, packaging foam, bubble wrap, and more, now has the potential to enter a recycling pathway because of Cyclyx.

Awards Selection Process

ACC convened a judging panel made up of external sustainability leaders from academia, industry, nonprofit and media sectors to review and select the award winners. The judging panel chose winning initiatives based on a range of factors, including the level of innovation the initiative demonstrated, the scope and reach of its impacts and the extent to which it addresses priorities outlined in ACC's Sustainability Principles and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. ACC received 56 applications from nearly 30 ACC member companies.

American Chemistry Council

The American Chemistry Council (ACC) represents the leading companies engaged in the multibillion-dollar business of chemistry. ACC members apply the science of chemistry to make innovative products, technologies and services that make people's lives better, healthier and safer. ACC is committed to improved environmental, health, safety and security performance through Responsible Care^®; common sense advocacy addressing major public policy issues; and health and environmental research and product testing. ACC members and chemistry companies are among the largest investors in research and development, and are advancing products, processes and technologies to address climate change, enhance air and water quality, and progress toward a more sustainable, circular economy.