Sustainability in the Chemical Industry in Brazil

Résumé

ABSTRACT

Over the past few decades, the Chemical Industry has shown a high growth rate resulting in higher consumption of raw materials, natural resources and also higher waste generation. In this context, a more sustainable attitude was adopted by the industry in order to reduce its negative impact, the results of such efforts are published in Sustainability Reports. However there are only but a few academic papers related to the subject, the objective of this graduation project is to help to fill this gap by presenting, through the analysis of sustainability reports of ten companies previously selected and by their economic, social and environmental indicators, the level of quantitative and qualitative application of sustainability in the processes, policies and culture of the chemical industry. The reports were analyzed by means of Excel Spreadsheets that were elaborated based on GRI guidelines, containing the description of the topic or sustainability indicator and also a field designated to the inclusion of relevant information that was exposed in the report. For the qualitative analysis, the companies were grouped by sector of performance and/or similar processes, enabling the development and analysis of relative indicators. It was also performed a qualitative assessment of the GRI application levels. The analysis of relative indicators allowed us to understand and measure the level of sustainability across industries that, together with the other analysis, allowed the authors to conclude that sustainability in the national chemical industry is at an early stage , where the industry is currently focusing its attention on aspects of energy consumption, water and emissions, further progress in the area requires greater investments in research and development of cleaner processes and that result in less waste.

Keywords:Chemical Industry; Sustainability; Sustainability - indicators