Wanhua Chemical President Guangwu Kou Speaks at WPC

Guangwu Kou, president of Wanhua Chemical, delivered his keynote speech – Coping with Challenges Through a Sustainable Path – at the 38th Annual World Petrochemical Conference (WPC), which ran from March 20-24 in Houston, TX.

Kou discussed ways in which chemical industry enterprises can drive sustainable development through the implementation of best practices and innovative solutions in the areas of energy, materials, management, and applications.

“To achieve green low-carbon transformation, we are well adopted to a full value chain management, from our own industrial park production, collaborative innovation throughout the whole industry chain, and end-user applications,” said Kou. “Deepening upstream and downstream industry chain ties, developing high-level integration, and cross-sector innovation, is what will ultimately help us to achieve our goal of carbon neutrality by 2050.”

Wanhua Chemical is driving scientific and technological innovation to empower low-carbon chemical transformation through clean energy, plant process optimization, thermal energy recycling, and carbon capture, utilization and sequestration (CCUS) in industry park production and operations.

Wanhua Chemical has laid out its plans in the clean energy field, including wind power, solar energy, nuclear power, etc., and realized the increase of clean energy through joint ventures and cooperation. It is estimated that by 2030, all the joint clean energy projects will enable Wanhua to obtain 14.9 billion kilowatt-hours of clean electricity every year and reduce carbon emissions by 8.65 million tons.

For example, Wanhua is a rare raw material supplier in the industry that can provide complete solutions for formaldehyde-free CWP manufacturing. A series of innovative construction materials, such as glass fiber-reinforced polyurethane profiles, have been commercialized successfully in order to promote green and energy-saving buildings.

In its efforts to make procurement, manufacturing, packaging, logistics, and recycling greener, Wanhua Chemical and its suppliers have jointly launched projects such as shared pallets, molded pallets, and recycled packaging bags to implement material circulation and reduce tree felling and waste generation.

New technologies for post-consumer material recycling include polyurethane (PU) foam recycling wherein the waste PU material is used to produce high-compatible repolyol through chemical processes, that can be directly used for foaming, with almost the same formulation compared to the original polyol. The process significantly reduces carbon emissions with no compromise on product properties and performance.

With innovative practices on its integrated green energy adoption, Wanhua won the EcoVadis Gold Medal for the second consecutive year in 2022, ranking in the top 5% of 75,000 companies, for its sustainable development efforts.

Wanhua Chemical is also the first Chinese company to join Together for Sustainability (TfS), which supports and coordinates the sustainability performance between chemical companies and its suppliers.