Sustainability
SDG 6
Clean Water and Sanitation
Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
Challenge
Access to water and sanitation is a human right that has not yet been realized for billions of people. Furthermore, around two billion people worldwide do not have regular access to clean water. About 771 million people do not even have a basic supply of drinking water.
According to a 2021 study by UNICEF, more than 1.42 billion people worldwide live in areas with overall high or extremely high levels of water insecurity, including 450 million children.
48 percent of wastewater flows untreated into rivers and oceans.
Examples of our contribution
- A good water supply is an extremely important prerequisite for our production. We use water as sparingly as possible and are constantly working to reduce our emissions into water bodies. We use water primarily for cooling purposes, as process water in production and for steam generation in power plants. We therefore regularly analyse the short-, medium- and long-term availability of water at our sites.
- In agriculture, our amino acids in animal nutrition help to reduce water consumption.
- Environmentally friendly detergents, cleaning agents, and disinfectants from Evonik are completely biodegradable and have a very good ecological profile.
- Hydrogen peroxide and peracetic acid are playing an increasingly important role in the fight against germs in wastewater as environmentally friendly alternatives. During use, only water and biodegradable acetic acid are produced as by-products.
Evonik´s Water Data 2023
Our Goal
In the period from 2021 to 2030, reduce the specific freshwater abstraction in relation to the production volume by 3 percent.