This target requires us to call for greater action on the need for a fossil-free chemical industry. We will be advocating for changes that support the transition to circular chemicals and materials. We want to lead by example, and we are demanding from ourselves to step up to address the climate crisis. The scale of the challenge demands that we more actively engage and work through partnerships and collaborations with a broad range of stakeholders.

Future Plans and Next Steps:

• Build engagement and educate the public on the impact of climate change, by using our voice and advocating for change in the chemical industry via events, media, blogs and through digital platforms.
• Work with stakeholders across the plastic value chain to fundamentally change plastic material by 2030 and empower our partners to shift to renewable and circular solutions.
• Working with governments and industry associations to help inform the debate and help shape climate policy through positive lobbying.

As part of our diversity agenda, we believe in gender equality and will strive to achieve this at Avantium. In 2019, 29% of Avantium’s Management Team, 25% of our Leadership Teams and 33% of our Supervisory Board were women. The chemical industry is currently underrepresented by women across all levels of organisations. Avantium compares favourably against the industry average but we know that there is still a lot to do across all levels of the company to achieve gender parity and equality.

First Moves and Next Steps:

• Refine Diversity and Inclusion company statement and enhance awareness.
• Map diversity (gender, age, nationality) in our main talent pipelines to understand what it means to reflect society.
• Define short (1-3 years), medium (up to 5 years) and long term (up to 10 years) company diversity targets.
• Factor gender criteria into attracting, retention, and succession planning and other HR processes.
• Report gender, age and nationality diversity and include in our company KPI reporting.
• Conduct diversity and inclusion and/or unconscious bias training for Line Managers and recruiters.
• Work with student workstream to encourage a better gender balance studying STEM subjects.

Our approach to inspire the next generation of scientists focuses on three actions:

• Supporting interventions that prove their effectiveness in raising interest and preventing students dropping out of STEM education.
• Developing the right partnerships with STEM education providers so that we are jointly able to reach a critical mass of students. Through these partnerships we will invest in programmes that ensure that STEM education is accessible to everyone, especially those in underserved communities.
• Using our scientific expertise to excite the next generation of scientists about sustainability and the beauty of chemistry.

First Moves and Next Steps:

• Establish a work team with representation from each business unit.
• Define education topics and training goals.
• Define the roll-out (e.g. train-the-trainer) strategy to reach the targeted audience.
• Develop training and education materials on sustainable and renewable chemistry that can be disseminated via social media and other platforms as well as via training programs.
• Map possible partnerships and define collaboration strategies.
• Deliver the training.
• Track and report on the number of students reached.

We aim to continuously improve our work environment and culture. We strive to maintain a flat organisation that empowers, recognises and celebrates the many cultures represented. We do this is by making sure we all live and breathe the Avantium values. These values act as our compass and ensure that we are a purpose driven organisation embracing sustainability, wellbeing, diversity and inclusion.

First Moves and Next Steps:

Perform a ‘Great Place to Work’ baseline assessment of workplace to be able to:

• Identify ‘strengths’ and ‘weak spots’ for targeted actions.
• Define a short (1-3 years), medium (up to 5 years) and long term (up to 10 years) action plan and measures to utilise strengths and improve weak spots.
• Establish a ‘Great Place to Work’ team from different business units and different levels of the organisation.
• Define desired employee experience and define improvement areas.
• Implement improvements to enhance employee experience.
• Perform a ‘Great Place to Work’ assessment again in year 5 to measure progress against the baseline.

We already have a strong safety culture and focus heavily on Health and Safety. We will now begin to embed safety into our systems. We will do this by rolling out ISO45001 across our operations as the gold standard for organisations who are serious about improving employee safety, reducing workplace risks and creating better and safer working conditions.

Future Plans and Next Steps:

• Proceeding with ISO45001 accreditation.
• Preparing the systems, processes, procedures and documentation for ISO45001.
• Training our people on the new enhanced standard.
• Conducting a pre-audit to understand Avantium’s readiness.
• Starting the formal certification process in 2022 with a view to completion in 2023.

We will do this by:

• Diverting waste from offices, plants and laboratories and setting standards to embed into Avantium’s general facility management and procurement practices.
• Monitoring and applying alternative options for materials generating significant damage to our environment.
• Educating and enabling behaviour change within our colleagues, particularly related to reuse and recycling.
• Wherever possible going ‘paperless’ including electronic documentation and lab books.
• Eliminating single use plastics from our own operations.
• Aligning our work on zero waste with our commitments on circularity and embracing the nine R’s of Refuse, Rethink, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Refurbish, Remanufacture, Repurpose, Recycle and Recover.

Future Plans and Next Steps:

• Partnerships with our waste providers and landlords for rented sites to improve the recycling facilities at all of our operations.
• Working with the Avantium Green Team, introduce programmes to promote reuse and recycling behaviours of Avantium’s employees.
• Setting an aspirational interim target of 70% reduction in non-hazardous waste to incineration by 2023.
• Exploring ways of reducing the amount of waste generated from Avantium’s operations.

In order to achieve zero carbon operations, we will focus on the following areas:

• Developing and implementing greenhouse gas (“GHG”) reduction and climate resiliency strategies.
• Lowering our GHG footprint by increasing energy efficiency and driving investment in renewables.
• Exploring ways to store away emissions that cannot be avoided, either through natural or technological offsetting schemes.

Future Plans and Next Steps:

We will:

• Switch to 100% renewable electricity.
• Calculate direct GHG emissions from our pilot plants and laboratory activities.
• Review alternative heating systems at some of our sites including looking into the availability of biogas.
• Investigate offsetting options for emissions that cannot be avoided and where alternatives are not available.
• Conduct a baseline assessment of our scope 3 emissions and establish a plan for reducing these emissions in line with climate science.

In order to ensure the integrity of our feedstocks, we aim to only partner with suppliers that actively engage in sustainable practices. We will strive to adopt independently certified sustainable standards of feedstock, but when these are not available or appropriate, we will create our own sustainability standards in consultation with subject matter experts and leading NGOs.

Future Plans and Next Steps:

• Defining sustainability standards for our renewable polymers and chemistries feedstocks.
• Working with our suppliers to ensure that our feedstocks meet our sustainability standards.
• Incorporating the sustainable sourcing of plant-based materials into the license agreements for our renewable technologies.

Avantium will tackle the circularity challenge with the following approach:

• Design products with renewable materials that are responsibly and ethically produced.
• Develop products that are durable and recyclable creating the highest possible value for the longest possible time while consuming the smallest amount of material possible.
• Develop partnerships within the circular value chain to “close the loop”.
• Develop new business models to extend the use of our technologies or products.
• Develop licensing models for our renewable and sustainable technologies, scaling the production and enabling economies of scale. This will enable Avantium to generate more circular impact.

Future Plans and Next Steps

• Ensuring that by 2025, all new technologies we develop will contribute positively towards the circular economy.
• Investigating circular business models for each line of business.
• Providing Sustainable Licences – include recommendations for optimal sustainable application of each technology.

Avantium’s technologies will deliver CO2 savings through:

• The commercialisation of its YXY® plants-to-plastics technology for the production of FDCA (furandicarboxylic acid), the key building block for PEF (Polyethylene Furanoate).
• The scale-up of Ray Technology™ for the production of plantMEG (mono-ethylene glycol).
• The conversion of carbon dioxide (CO2) via electrochemistry to valuable ingredients and sustainable chemical building blocks.
• Improving efficiency in the broader chemical and petrochemical industries using its proprietary high-throughput catalysis platform.

Future Plans and Next Steps:

• Continuing to use Life Cycle Analysis for our technologies as these will confirm the reduction in environmental impact between Avantium’s renewable products and the market incumbent.
• Estimating the impact of scaled up technologies per licence.
• Quantifying the role our Catalysis business unit plays in supporting customers to reduce CO2 via accelerated R&D.