The Renewable Carbon Initiative (RCI), an interest group of leading companies and pioneers from the chemical and material sector, is advocating from the start for policies acknowledging the indispensable need of carbon in a broad range of chemical and material industries. It considers the Communication on Sustainable Carbon Cycles, as published in December 2021, a milestone in European policy as it acknowledges exactly this value of carbon as a feedstock and its unavoidability for certain sectors. The Communication aims to outline the necessary measures for achieving climate neutrality in 2050 including specific steps and targets for the manufacturing industries.
Up to this point in time, climate policy has been solely focusing on ‘decarbonisation’ for many decades. While this is a good strategy for the energy sector, chemicals and materials mostly consist of carbon. Hence, ‘decarbonisation’ is not possible – but in order to avoid fossil emissions contributing to climate change, ‘defossilisation’ is key. Therefore, renewable carbon and carbon management must become a guiding principle for all policies and targets. The transformation of existing chemical infrastructure from fossil to renewable carbon should be stimulated, and current biofuel plants should not go to waste with the decline in demand for liquid fuels, but should instead become raw material suppliers for the new chemical industry.
RCI’s full position paper on the Sustainable Carbon Cycles Communication is now available online. For more information, visit the RCI website.
