Companies including Unilever, BASF and Tata Steel will embark on first ever cross sector collaborative programme to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Together with the SCI (Society of Chemical Industry) the group has secured funding for a two-year programme to develop a new value chain to convert industrial waste gases into sustainable materials for consumer products. The project, which has been granted £2.68m from Innovate UK, will aim to help the UK reach its net-zero target. The SCI programme Flue2Chem could cut around 15 to 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

This comes at a time when most of the carbon used in everything from electronics to home care and many other products is extracted from coal, oil and gas. If the UK is to reach its net-zero target by 2050, industries must find an alternative source for the carbon in these goods.

Aside from the technical aspects of the project, the business model development will frame the economic incentives that are likely to be required to make the model work. The project will bring together partners from across the whole supply chain to achieve this.

Currently the UK is importing large amounts of carbon containing feedstocks each year for use in the consumer goods industry. Securing an alternative domestic source of carbon in these goods is one way in which these sectors can contribute to net-zero targets, while also building a new UK value chain.

In addition to SCI, Unilever, BASF and Tata Steel, the other consortium partners are: UPM-Kymmene, Holmen, Croda, Johnson Matthey, The University of Sheffield, The University of Surrey, Carbon Clean, Procter & Gamble, Centre for Process Innovation, Confederation of Paper Industries, and Reckitt.

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