Management approach
Material topic: Air emissions
Importance for Lenzing
- Managing air emissions to reduce potential risks to environment and society
- Compliance with legislation and stakeholder needs
Opportunities
- Further improvement and development of closed-loop processes and recovery technologies
- Showing leadership in pulp and fiber production with low environmental and social impacts
Risks
- Air emissions carry potential regulatory, technology, market and corporate reputational risks
- Air emissions can affect the health of employees and community residents as well as the surrounding environment
Guiding principles
- “Naturally positive” sustainability strategy with “Sustainable innovations” focus area
- Sustainability targets for the Lenzing Group
- Group Policy for Safety, Health and Environment
- Lenzing Group ISO 14001:2015 certification
- Group Environmental Standard
- Global Code of Business Conduct
- Global Supplier Code of Conduct
- Higg FEM
Due diligence processes and (ongoing) measures
- Environmental management system based on ISO 14001:2015 (including risk assessment and internal audits to ensure effectiveness of the measures implemented)
- Regular Global QESH meetings with management review
Objectives
- All sites must comply with the Group Environmental Standard based on EU BAT by 2022
- Group-wide EU Ecolabel certification
Achievements/activities in the reporting year
- LURA III (air cleaning system), started operations in the viscose-modal production in Lenzing
- Lenzing contributing to leading multi-stakeholder initiatives (ZDHC, SAC, etc.)
- Continuous improvement activities to further reduce air emissions
Responsible
- VP Global QESH
Reduction of sulfur emissions
Sulfur and sulfur compounds are indispensable for the standard viscose fiber manufacturing process. Lenzing has dramatically reduced sulfur emissions over the decades by closing loops and installing recovery systems. Although all of the Lenzing Group’s viscose fiber producing sites (Lenzing, Austria; Nanjing, China; and Purwakarta, Indonesia) are equipped with waste gas purification and recovery technologies, some carbon disulfide (CS2), hydrogen sulfide (H2S), and sulfur dioxide (SO2) is emitted from the process itself and from on-site energy production. The planned carbon disulfide absorption plant (CAP) project in Indonesia is on schedule. It will be essential for reducing specific sulfur emissions by 50 percent (target 1).
In 2021, after the market recovery from the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, production at Lenzing sites has normalized to a large extent. As a result, the emissions are comparable to the 2019 level. At the Austrian site in Lenzing, CS2 emissions have fallen due to the new emission treatment system in operation since the beginning of 2021 (table “Absolute emissions to air”).
Lyocell fiber production generates only trace emissions since NMMO, an organic solvent, remains in the water/solvent cycle throughout the entire process and is recovered at a rate of more than 99.8 percent.
At the Nanjing site, projects on reducing odor emission as carried out, which resulted the reduction of sulphur emission to air in Q4 2021.
For more information about important steps taken in 2021, see section “Sustainability targets, measures and progress”.
|
2014 |
2019 |
2020 |
2021 |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sulfur emissions (t) (CS2, H2S emissions expressed as sulfur) |
34,787 |
23,280 |
19,187 |
25,969 |
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SO2 emissions (t) |
3,908 |
2,684 |
2,135 |
2,603 |
||||
NOx emissions (t)b |
|
619 |
587 |
1,321 |
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