Over July 3-4th, colleagues participated in the Global Impact Coalition (GIC) annual community meeting at the Brightlands Chemelot Campus in Sittard-Geleen, Netherlands. The purpose of this meeting was to enable all our members and partners to advance work on our shared mission to reduce carbon emissions and advance circularity in the chemical sector. The event brought together around 50 participants from all member and partner companies, including: members BASF, Clariant, Covestro, LYB, Mitsubishi Chemical Group, SABIC, Sabanci Group (Kordsa), Syensqo, and partners Siemens Energy, TNO, Brightlands with guidance and support from our implementation partner, BCG.
The GIC working groups met together with the Executive Committee to discuss and advance on current projects covering critical topics including automotive plastics recycling, pyrolysis oil BI platform, Carbon Capture & Utilization (CCU), and direct conversion/gasification. The meeting was an important milestone to align our project teams and community in preparation for the August CEO Advisory Board meeting. A key outcome of the meeting was the decision to push harder to advance projects faster by working in a series of in-person sprints and ensure a closer alignment with leadership via the Executive Committee. Going forward, project working groups will each have an ExCom sponsor and will meet every 6-8 weeks for the sprints.
The workshop also served to explore new ideas for future GIC projects. Guided by pre-work done by BCG along with input from members, the group explored topics including battery recycling, how to improve traceability of chemicals along the value chain and using AI for material testing.
Several start-up organizations related to these projects were invited to give a 2-minute pitch of their capabilities and helped spur the ideation and discussion in the break-out groups. The start-ups/research centers invited include:
- Circularise, provides digital product passports for supply chain traceability
- Maastricht University, provides a multidisciplinary research environment
- Nanoloy, provides plasma printed lithium-ion batteries
- Novocycle, provides an efficient and sustainable lithium-ion battery recycling process
Out of the ideation session, the group found particular interest in advancing the topic of AI-driven material testing for toxicity & compliance. Ideas discussed fell into three areas: Developing a roadmap for AI opportunities, Benchmarking of tools and engagement with regulators, & Developing models for better compliance with regulations.
This idea will be explored further in the upcoming ExCom meeting and ideation session in September. To prepare, GIC will engage with AI specialists from member companies, relevant organizations and visionary start-ups operating in this space.
Finally, the in-person meeting was a critical moment to share updates on the progress and plans of the Global Impact Coalition, including an overview of collaborations, events and communications. The importance of communications was reiterated, highlighting the role of comms to generate further interest, gain new members and partners, and advance on select projects. Guided by the GIC Executive Committee, the group also reviewed our collective success criteria and overall project portfolio strategy to ensure the GIC has a robust pipeline of relevant and tangible projects to achieve its mission.
The Global Impact Coalition would like to thank all those who participated and contributed to the success of this annual community meeting.
