Combating the effects of climate change remains one of the biggest global challenges for the coming decades.
Linde views climate change as one of the developments set to shape the future of our business. We analyse and evaluate its consequences in terms of both opportunities and risks.
Synergising our gases and engineering expertise, we deliver a broad range of products and processes to make renewable energy more cost-effective, dramatically cut consumption of natural resources and help reduce or even eliminate harmful emissions. This also reflects our stakeholders’ recommendation to make climate protection a top priority.
Principles
In its Corporate Responsibility policy, Linde makes a firm commitment to protecting the environment, offering safe, eco-friendly goods and services and pursuing research and development into particularly sustainable products, services and technologies.
We regularly measure and evaluate company processes that have an impact on the environment and climate, publishing the results in our annual Corporate Responsibility Report in accordance with internationally approved standards (see also Facts and Figures).
Protection throughout the process chain
At different stages of the process chain, both of our main Divisions take steps to reduce energy consumption and emissions, cut hazardous substances in combustion processes and develop technologies for renewable energy.
Gases Division
Climate protection in the Gases Division is managed through the Global Support Functions (see graphic). In production, the main focus is on our most energy-intensive facilities (i.e. air separators and HyCO plants) whose primary products are hydrogen and carbon monoxide.
We are also working to optimise our route planning for road transit – whether for gas cylinders or liquid gas in tank vehicles – to cut fuel consumption and thus emissions.
Our gases also enable highly diverse applications geared towards climate protection, both by reducing and substituting harmful emissions. You can find details of individual applications and methods here.
We have already prepared lifecycle assessments evaluating the ecological balance of oxygen and hydrogen. Click here to find out more.
Engineering Division
In our Engineering Division, climate protection is integrated into all three process levels - management, core and support (see graphic).
At a management level, climate protection is covered under the QHSE management programme.
At a core process level, focus is on the preparation of tenders and plant planning.
Whenever possible, our Engineering Division offers proven and reliable process technologies that extend beyond the customer’s RFQ and/or local environmental regulations.
Here we always undertake to advise our customers of the benefits of these solutions and demonstrate how they could be integrated in the relevant project to reduce the environmental impact. This undertaking is another example of the Engineering Division’s new QHSE policy in practice.
Further downstream, our engineering and environmental safety department ensures that the plant is engineered in accordance with customer specifications, applicable laws and statutory regulations, established guidelines and standards, and the latest advances in engineering and environmental safety.
Research and development play an extremely important role in our plant construction process flow, and climate protection is a key consideration here. In the future, we plan to implement innovation performance indicators, which will also help us track the improving capabilities of our Engineering Division from an environmental perspective.
Emissions trading at Linde
Linde is not currently affected by the European Union emissions trading scheme. However, from 2013, plants producing over 25 tonnes of hydrogen per day will be involved. To ensure fair competition, no distinction is to be made between internal and outsourced facilities.
UN Global Compact: “Caring for Climate” initiative
An active member of the UN Global Compact, Linde joined 150 other international companies in signing the Global Compact “Caring for Climate” statement (www.globalcompact.org) in July 2007. Through this voluntary business leadership platform, we are demonstrating our commitment to develop solutions for climate protection and to report on our emissions every year. This move gives a transparent overview of our environmental activities and the impact of our business operations.
