From The WACKER Corporation: 'The late Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson founded Earth Day in 1970 to educate people in the United States about env
From The WACKER Corporation: ‘The late Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson founded Earth Day in 1970 to educate people in the United States about environmental issues. At its inception 53 years ago, the goal of Earth Day was to increase public awareness and understanding of pollution and serve as a platform for ecological causes.
Earth Day’s evolution into a global movement has sensitized people, communities, and companies about the environmental impact of our decisions. Today, more than a billion people, including thousands of companies, observe Earth Day each year on April 22.
WACKER Chemical Corporation(“WACKER”) has recently announced new plans to cut greenhouse gases. These targets are science-based and consistent with keeping the global rise in temperature below 1.5 degrees Celsius in compliance with the Paris Agreement. WACKER also recently joined Race to Zero, the United Nation’s carbon neutrality initiative. The company has voluntarily committed to the 1.5-degrees target. It publishes transparent progress reports on its course toward net zero greenhouse gases on its website, www.wacker.com/sustainability.
Since completing the construction of our hyperpure polysilicon manufacturing facility in Charleston in April 2016 – coincidentally sharing the same birth month as Earth Day – WACKER has taken steps to help employees and the company, in general, understand and practice environmental stewardship in the communities in which they operate.
WACKER-Charleston is one of the most modern production facilities for hyperpure polysilicon worldwide. This facility was designed to integrate environmental protection measures, which improve their production processes and maximize resource conservation. One of the ways they accomplish this task is by closing material loops and reusing by-products by putting them back into production whenever possible. In this way, the company reduces resource consumption, emissions, and waste, effectively integrating environmental protection into its production processes.
WACKER proactively monitors resource and waste targets at its site and divisional levels to maintain compliance with all local, state, and federal regulations.
WACKER strives to be a good corporate citizen and neighbor through the responsible use of natural resources. For example, manufacturing polysilicon and other products they produce for their customers requires approximately one million gallons of water each day. Through technologically advanced processes managed by their infrastructure and environmental stewardship team members, they recycle their cooling water approximately seven times through the cooling cycle resulting in millions of gallons of water conservation daily.
Following the core principles of the global Responsible Care® initiative to which WACKER subscribes, their environmental protection measures often exceed what is legally required. Responsible stewardship is one of the ways they contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development goals. Their global standards for protecting the environment apply to all production sites and R&D centers. Site managers worldwide ensure that environmental protection requirements and standards are met or exceeded at all WACKER locations. They continuously review how environmental measures and legal conditions are implemented through a groupwide reporting system to ensure compliance.’
