Ecology

Today’s solutions for tomorrow’s problems

Bayer develops, utilizes and sells products and processes that enable us and our customers to use energy and material resources sparingly. A responsible approach to potential risks is particularly important for us. Our environmental policy is currently centered around our commitment to climate protection. In 2006 – the year covered by this Report – we succeeded in keeping greenhouse gas emissions more or less constant despite a 4.4 percent increase in production volume.

Bayer is participating in numerous international initiatives to support climate protection. In response to an urgent appeal by the Global Roundtable on Climate Change in February 2007, Bayer also signed the position paper “The Path to Climate Sustainability,” which calls on politicians to define serious, scientifically founded targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the period after the expiry of the Kyoto Protocol (2012). It advocates a globally regulated climate protection policy that includes all the relevant nations, taking into account their respective capabilities. The reduction targets should not endanger economic development and economic growth. The Global Roundtable on Climate Change, which includes not only industrial companies but also many associations and scientific institutions, was initiated in January 2005 by Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at New York’s Columbia University (United States).

In January 2007, Bayer and a number of other companies had publicly launched the project “3C: Combat Climate Change.” This campaign, too, aims to limit climate change and sets out to help politicians set a global framework for cutting emissions that offers all companies around the world fair competitive conditions.

Only recently, the Bayer Climate Challenge Program was established. It aims to identify solutions that will enable Bayer to contribute to climate protection and deal with the consequences of climate change.

Energy-saving
innovations

Saving
fuel

Customer
relations

Greenhouse
gas emissions

Measures to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions

Energy-saving innovations: Tried and tested in Europe, introduced in China
In the international research institutions, Bayer engineers are working intensively on developing new technologies that lower costs and reduce the burden on the environment. Bayer MaterialScience is currently testing, for example, innovative processes for the production of two polyurethane starting products in Antwerp (Belgium) and Dormagen (Germany). One is aniline, which is used for the production of diphenylmethane diisocyanate (MDI) and toluene diisocyanate (TDI). The two processes consume up to one third less energy than their conventional counterparts. The test phase has been successfully concluded and the processes will in future be deployed on an industrial scale at Bayer’s site near Shanghai, China.

The world’s largest hydrochloric acid recycling unit is under construction in Shanghai. It will be able to produce 215,000 metric tons of chlorine from hydrochloric acid every year and will use the oxygen depolarized cathode technology (ODC). The plant is scheduled to go on stream in 2008. A hydrochloric acid electrolysis plant using the odc technology with an annual capacity of 20,000 metric tons of chlorine already went on stream in Brunsbüttel in 2003. The advantage of this process is the enormous energy saving: Compared with the established membrane process, the ODC process requires about 30 percent less electricity. The technical principle corresponds to that of a fuel cell. By feeding in oxygen gas, the electrolysis can be performed at a far lower voltage.

We are currently further refining this process with the support of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) to enable us to also apply the increase in energy efficiency to the production of chlorine from sodium chloride (chlorine-alkali electrolysis).

Saving fuel: Creative solution developed
Our company contributes to climate protection not only by improving existing processes, but above all through its innovative products. Polyurethane insulating materials, for example, ensure that the amount of energy needed to heat or cool buildings is significantly reduced. Also, Bayer CropScience offers numerous solutions for use in the field of renewable raw materials.

Another major challenge in this connection is to significantly reduce energy consumption in transport, because the number of vehicles and the amount of traffic is increasing at an enormous speed all over the world. Bayer MaterialScience experts are working on a particularly creative solution, although it is initially only suitable for niche markets: In conjunction with Swiss automotive visionary Frank M. Rinderknecht and his firm Rinspeed, they have developed a “glass” concept car with a completely transparent body and floor made of Makrolon® plastic. The two-seater fuel economy model is called “eXasis” and was presented for the first time at the Geneva Motor Show in March 2007 – 40 years after Bayer first attracted attention in the automotive industry in 1967 with its “K67” concept model, the world’s first all-plastic car.

The low fuel consumption of the eXasis comes from Bayer MaterialScience’s exceptionally lightweight but stable plastics. Nearly every part of the subgroup participated in the development of the vehicle, with products such as surface coatings and polyurethanes being involved.

Customer relations: Competitive advantage through environmental protection
Sony recently presented Bayer MaterialScience with the “Excellent Supplier Award.” Bayer MaterialScience is the main supplier of the flame-retardant polycarbonate blend Bayblend®, which is used, for example, in flat lcd tvs. Bayblend’s flame-retardant packages are free of bromium, chlorine and antimony. In addition, Bayer MaterialScience is listed with Sony globally as a “Green Partner” under the so-called “Green Partner Environmental Quality Approval Program.”

Greenhouse gas emissions under the international GHG Protocol
To be able to compare the greenhouse gas emissions data from companies worldwide, which had previously been collected using a variety of different methods, the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) got together to develop an international standard known as the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG).

The GHG Protocol takes into account not only the direct emissions of a company – i.e. all emissions connected with its own activities – but also indirect emissions resulting from the generation of electricity and heat by external suppliers. A third category covers extended indirect emissions from starting products, logistics, the utilization and disposal of a company‘s products, business travel and employee commuting.

A major change has been made to the definition of emissions limits: Conventional reporting is performed for a company’s consolidated activities in accordance with its annual report. According to the GHG Protocol, the greenhouse gas emissions for all previous years must be related to a company’s structure in the current year and must be retroactively calculated to take account of that structure. By doing this, the GHG Protocol should ensure that emissions and reductions can always be unambiguously accounted for. This is a challenge insofar as companies such as Bayer develop dynamically over the course of time: They take over other enterprises, sell parts of the company or carve out certain operations. Consequently, the greenhouse gas emissions data have to be recalculated retroactively each time.

Measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
Since 1990, Bayer has carried out wide-ranging measures to reduce direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions. Significant investments and efficiency increases have contributed to this.

Some milestones:

Between 1997 and 2002, the chlorine-alkali electrolysis units were gradually converted from the mercury-cell to the membrane process (reduction: 0.4 million metric tons CO₂e/year).
Up to 1999, the heat network of the sites was optimized with the aid of the “pinch point method” (reduction: 0.5 million metric tons CO₂e/year).
In 2000, two outdated coal power plants were closed; since then, the power has been supplied by a modern gas and steam turbine plant from RWE AG (shift from 1.2 million metric tons direct to 0.6 million metric tons indirect CO₂e/year)

Steps that were taken to reduce emissions in areas of production that now no longer belong to Bayer are, under the GHG Protocol, eliminated from Bayer’s emissions data reports. Instead, any measures undertaken in newly acquired companies before their integration into Bayer are covered by the retroactive adjustment of the emissions at Bayer.

Another significant advance made by Bayer with regard to climate protection since 1993 has been the incineration of the N₂O generated in the production of adipic acid, and the utilization of the resultant energy for the production process (4 million metric tons CO₂e/year). In 2005, the plant was transferred to Lanxess following the carve-out and is now no longer considered in Bayer’s figures.