Greenhouse gases
The battle against climate change
During the 1990s, Rhodia became aware of the significant impact greenhouse gas emissions can have on the environment. As a result, we committed to reducing our emissions in France by 30 percent over the period from 1990 to 2010. The company made considerable investments which have resulted in reduced emissions from its Chalampé site (France) by about 20 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year.
Since 2005 Rhodia has registered a fall in greenhouse gas emissions of 76 percent on the global stage. This significant decrease is the result of the two investments made in 2006 on the sites at Onsan in South Korea and Paulinia in Brazil, and in 2008, on the site at Salindres in France. Since 2007, these installations have allowed the Group to monetize approximately 13.5 Mt of CERs per year. Thus in 2009, more than 31 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions has been avoided.
orbeo: from project to market, a unique combination of financial & industrial expertise
Capitalizing on its expertise in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and optimizing the use of its emission credit portfolio, the Group joined forces with Société Générale in 2006 to create orbeo.
The orbeo company combines industrial, environmental and financial expertise dedicated to greenhouse gas emission reductions. From project to market, orbeo covers the whole carbon value chain: upstream, via origination, orbeo identifies and develops projects to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases for third parties and downstream, trades the carbon instruments and provides customized strategies serving a wide range of customers on a worldwide basis.
Its expertise has been recognized by several prestigious awards: orbeo was ranked 1st in two categories (Best dealer in EUA and Primary CERs) and 2nd in another category (Best dealer in Secondary CERs) in the 2010 Annual Energy & Commodity Rankings 2010, published by Risk and Energy Risk.