Since my earliest travel experiences as a young person, I've been captivated by the beauty of nature. I have also become increasingly awake to the direct impacts of climate change on the environment and people whose way of life depends on it. Over time, I discovered how, by changing my habits, I could make a difference, at least on a small scale at home and in my personal life.
In recent years, my role at Corbion has enabled me to help on a larger scale. Part of what drew me here was discovering the great variety of products that, through biotechnology, can be created using materials and processes provided by nature. It's fascinating to me! My attraction to the science of creating biobased products inspired me to earn a degree in biotechnology and later led me to working at Corbion.
Corbion's Sustainability team works very hard to understand, in great detail, how our business impacts the environment and other people. We continuously look for opportunities to make negative impacts smaller and positive impacts bigger. We also have committed to an ambitious goal: Reduce our Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 42% and our Scope 3 emissions by 25% by 2030, compared to 2021, and achieve net zero by 2050.
It's a complicated undertaking, combining data from very different disciplines in meaningful ways through complex calculations. We look at everything from emissions and energy consumption tied to materials sourcing to manufacturing methods and equipment, from product and materials transport to product and materials waste. To facilitate our analyses by speeding numerous calculations, we developed our own greenhouse gas (GHG) forecast model to combine actual current GHG emissions (based on data we collect) with those we forecast for the future based on different growth scenarios and CO2 reduction opportunities.
This tool greatly helps in constructing a roadmap for achieving our science-based targets, including intermediate targets. It makes it easier to prioritize CO2 reduction projects and assess gaps in our plans for reducing emissions, which is extremely important as we explore more suitable, more sustainable alternatives down the road that enable us to meet 2030 targets.
Much of the time, sustainability is simply about doing things more efficiently, in part to preserve the beauty of nature. Our GHG forecast model is designed to help us pursue sustainability gains more efficiently, and there's a certain kind of beauty in that, too.