Our focus areas
Our focus areas
As a key player selling sustainability, there is a great responsibility on us to practice what we preach. Our products contribute to achieving climate goals and our own processes strive to be resource-efficient and renewable.
Sekab is certified according to the ISO 14001 standard, and our production is also certified according to the German sustainability system ISCC. This helps us to have control over the development of environmental work and continuously reduce the total environmental impact of our operations.
Environmental work is conducted at all levels of the organization and is an integrated part of the business. Most of the environmental work is directly linked to our production facility, but we systematically work with environmental issues in all parts of the business.
Sekab’s ambition is to take responsibility for the company’s environmental impact throughout the entire value chain. We focus on reducing the company’s climate impact through efficient use of raw materials, energy, other natural resources, and transportation. The company develops fossil-free products, and in doing so, we contribute to sustainable development in society.
We believe that the path to a sustainable future lies in renewable alternatives. Sekab is one of the few chemical producers in Europe that can offer chemicals based on biobased raw materials as an alternative to oil-based ones. Additionally, we produce them using renewable input energy such as steam and electricity. This guarantees that our customers receive 100% fossil-free bio-chemicals, which generate very low emissions to air and water during the manufacturing process.
By using bio-based raw materials in the process, we have good opportunities to influence the CO2 impact on society. Furthermore, Sekab has developed and demonstrated technology for producing chemicals from forest residues to further strengthen the development towards a more sustainable society. This makes us a perfect partner for companies that want to reduce their climate impact.
During the year, the pressure, interest, and demand for bio-based and verified sustainable products continued to increase rapidly, which is very pleasing. With the capacity increase of our production of bio-acetic acid, we have been able to offer more products at larger volumes in 2022. This means that we have increased both margins and sales. As each deal we make replaces a fossil alternative, it is very positive.
Sekab continuously works to reduce energy consumption within the operations. Today, all the electricity used is renewable, and 97% of the steam used in the plant is also renewable. Part of the steam Sekab uses is produced in its own steam boiler, where we utilize residual gases from the production.
Energy consumption is continuously monitored and considered in process changes. In 2022, the total steam consumption was 101,855 tons and the total electricity consumption was 4,158 MWh.
Air emissions mainly come from process exhaust gases from production, as well as from ventilation from storage tanks and loading.
Sekab’s emissions of NOx and TOC are among the lowest in Sweden, relative to the amount of produced energy. In 2022, we had emissions of 0.6 mg TOC/m3, which means that the conditions were met with a good margin.
To avoid unnecessary emissions, we have equipped all major storage tanks with technical solutions designed to reduce air emissions.
The process water is treated in the biological treatment plant located in the industrial area and then discharged into the recipient. The biogas formed in the treatment plant is used within the industrial area for, among other things, production of electricity and district heating.
The average value for 2022 was 1.64 tons of TOC per day, which is within the applicable conditions.