SABIC CEO says innovation, collaboration needed to meet SDGs

Innovation and collaboration among global businesses will be crucial to meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), SABIC Vice Chairman and CEO Yousef Al-Benyan told the third-annual Future Investment Initiative (FII) on Tuesday.

“I have said before that there are disruptive forces reshaping our industry, our customers and our world,” he said during a panel discussion on “Investing for Impact”.

“We see these as opportunities to build partnerships and devise innovative solutions that respond to these challenges,” he added.

SABIC recently launched “TRUCIRCLE”, an initiative that links the firm’s innovative circular materials and technologies, as it seeks new partners to address one of the world’s most urgent sustainability challenges – the reduction of mixed plastic waste.

Circular polymers are a key to fulfilling the promise of a circular economy, and stemming the flow of plastic waste into waterways and ecosystem, Al-Benyan said.

“We are collaborating with our upstream suppliers and key downstream customers, on a disruptive innovation that upcycles mixed plastic waste back to the original polymer for packaging applications,” he said.

SABIC has also made strides in reducing carbon dioxide emissions from its industrial processes.

In Jubail, the company has built the world’s largest CO2 capture and purification plant, which will capture up to half a million tons of CO2 annually from certain production processes and convert it into feedstock for industrial processes.

“That is equivalent to planting over 11 million trees,” Al-Benyan added.