New SABIC sustainability roadmap aligns with UN SDGs

SAUDI manufacturing company SABIC has launched its sustainability roadmap aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It explains the company’s holistic approach to sustainability and outlines new initiatives that are expected to contribute to the SDGs and provide growth opportunities for the business.

SABIC Sustainable Development Roadmap 2019 spans the entire value chain and outlines targets relating to resource efficiency, climate change, circular economy, food security, sustainable infrastructure, and environmental preservation. It forms part of the company’s 2025 strategy and supports its overall sustainability programme.

SABIC believes that it is well placed to help drive meaningful sustainable change.

Bob Maughon is Executive Vice President of Sustainability, Technology, and Innovation, Chief Technology Officer, and Chief Sustainability Officer at SABIC.

He said: “As one of the world’s leading and most forward-thinking petrochemical companies, SABIC has already embedded many environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainability into its DNA, so we welcome the opportunity to strategically align our business with the UN’s SDGs.”

“With the SDGs enabling a framework to translate the world’s most urgent challenges into actionable solutions, those organisations that put advanced product design and innovation at the forefront of their business strategy can not only help achieve these vitally important goals, but they can also benefit from the significant opportunities created by new and changing market demands.”

SABIC and the Sustainable Development Goals

According to SABIC, the petrochemicals sector plays a fundamental role in industry and society. It is “diverse, complex and far-reaching”, touching virtually all aspects of life through the production of intermediates that are used in a range of industrial and consumer-based products.

SABIC believes that companies like itself are uniquely placed to make “exceptional and wide-ranging contributions to many SDGs”.

SABIC has committed to reducing energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and water usage by 25% by 2025 using 2010 as a baseline. The company also noted that it is scaling-up a pioneering “world-first” process to return mixed plastic waste back to the original polymer “to help drive the circular economy”.

SABIC has identified ten of the 17 SDGs as strategic focus areas where it could have the greatest positive impacts: Zero Hunger (SDG 2); Clean Water and Sanitation (SDG 6); Affordable and Clean Energy (SDG 7); Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8); Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure (SDG 9); Sustainable Cities and Communities (SDG 11); Responsible Consumption and Production (SDG 12); Climate Action (SDG 13); Life Below Water (SDG 14); and Partnerships for the Goals (SDG 17).