Responsible chemistry is formulae for a greener tomorrow: Vipul Shah, Dow India

Chemistry is the science of evolution, whether it is through new chemistry for the synthesis of pharmaceuticals, new technologies for energy conversion or new approaches to environmental protection. The chemical sciences today affect modern life in countless ways, be it cellphone microprocessors, shatter-proof windscreens, lightweight toothpaste tubes, treatment of industrial water or effluent treatment. This rising demand for chemistry, combined with depleting fossil resources and heightened sense of urgency for ecologically sustainable economic growth, has seen the devices of the modern chemical industry change and witness escalating demand for clean and green energy.
 
To match up to these challenges, change and innovation have been the driving forces of the industry, globally. In its efforts to drive manufacturing efficiency, it is increasingly putting a greater emphasis on how this change materialises - in make existing processes ecologically better, simplifying and reducing the process path to the product and ultimately delivering lower costs to consumers.
 
For instance, one of the engines of innovation of the global chemical industry in the recent years is industrial biotechnology or white biotechnology – as it is widely referred to in continental Europe - as a key platform to create innovative and sustainable chemical processes and products. The industry is thus at the threshold of a hybrid between petrochemicals and biotechnology.
 
Additionally, the global chemicals industry has also established an emerging key indicator of sustainable growth – Responsibility – by throwing its best-in-class R&D legacy to address issues of safety and environmental degradation associated with it.   
 
One such ongoing global initiative is called Responsible Care®. This is the  industry’s own endeavour to make responsibility and care an integral part of every process it employs - right from clean, sustainable manufacturing of chemicals, to their protected, standardised transport to client facilities, to their safe, quick disposal.
 
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There have been some noteworthy initiatives in India to this effect as well. Historically, chemicals were transported by regular road tankers, ones used for water! Definitely not the safest option. Globally players use ISO containers as the minimum standard for the movement of hazardous chemicals. They introduced ADR (Accord Européen Relatif Au Transport International Des Marchandises Dangereuses par Route)-certified tankers. The Indian chemical industry today is no different. It collaborates with transporters to insist on ISO- and ADR-certified tankers from Europe and transport hazardous chemicals to their customers in a safe, eco-friendly and sustainable way.
 
Another instance of commitment to sustainability is sensitivity to reduce all kinds of waste and a commitment to reuse and recycle everything in the world around us. Water, for instance, is a good example. Some of the world’s leading scientific minds – in particular in the realm of the chemical sciences – have been fashioning a solution to address the problem of industrial waste water recovery to create reusable water. It is this ‘recycled’ water that runs through some leading industrial units in India.
 
The Government of India too has initiated a number of measures to ensure industry’s growth is sustained in a longer term. The draft National Chemical Policy, 2012, prepared by the Department of Chemicals accords high importance to R&D, technology up-gradation, promotes approaches that negate growing pollution and environmental degradation, creates an efficient system for effluent disposal and focuses on green chemicals.
 
I would like to believe that this promising emergence of green chemistry – where chemical products are designed to be environment friendly right at the conceptual stage – is the result of industry’s focus on continuous improvement by leading manufacturers to deliver products that are functionally better, more efficient and long-lasting.
 
The industry’s evolving inner mind will help us address many of our world’s problems. Even as you read this, the chemical industry is hard at work, looking to tap, store, and deliver alternate energy reliably, and on a large scale.
 
The author is President, CEO & Chairman of Dow India