Covestro Publishes Energy Efficiency Target

With an ambitious goal for energy efficiency, Covestro is pushing ahead with its focus on climate neutrality and the circular economy: By 2030, the company wants to use 20 percent less energy to produce one ton of product than in 2020. This corresponds to around 550,000 tons of CO₂ emissions – roughly as much as the annual CO₂ emissions of a city with around 70,000 inhabitants or the CO₂ emissions of 180,000 cars that drive for a year.

The energy efficiency target contributes to Covestro’s ambitious plan to achieve climate-neutral production by 2035. It is to be achieved primarily thanks to more efficient processes and innovative technologies. For example, Covestro has now commissioned a modern reactor at its Dormagen site that uses waste heat from production processes to generate steam for further manufacturing steps. CO₂ emissions can thus be reduced by up to 22,000 tons per year.

The event to announce the energy efficiency target and the commissioning of the reactor was attended by guests from politics, business and the energy sector, including Oliver Krischer, Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Transport of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and Dr. Julia Metz, Director of Agora Industrie.

Energy efficiency is an important pillar of Covestro’s corporate strategy: “Climate-neutral production can only be achieved if we significantly reduce our energy requirements for the manufacture of our products. This is because there is currently not enough renewable energy available at affordable prices to even begin to cover demand,” says Dr. Thorsten Dreier, Chief Technology Officer of Covestro. “In addition, as a supplier of standard products, we must always keep our manufacturing costs as low as possible in order to be competitive in the global market.” In view of persistently high energy costs, especially in Germany and Europe, energy reduction is therefore a decisive factor for business success.

At the announcement of the energy efficiency target and the inauguration of the energy-saving reactor in Dormagen, Oliver Krischer also emphasized in the panel talk with Dr. Julia Metz and Dr. Thorsten Dreier how important energy saving is for a sustainable future of the state – and what role the modernization of industrial production plays in this.

In parallel to its energy efficiency management, Covestro relies on renewable energy sources to achieve its climate neutrality goals. In 2024, for example, the company signed a contract with bp for electricity from solar power for the site in Tarragona, Spain, bringing the share of electricity from renewable energy sources at the site to 30 percent. Thanks to a PPA with RWE, the Antwerp site will be supplied with 60 percent renewable electricity from 2026. And four Covestro sites in the U.S. have been powered entirely by renewable electricity since the beginning of 2025.