Water shortage affects every continent we operate in, so we have a duty to use water responsibly for the good of society and the natural environment.
INEOS is committed to using water sustainably and recognises the human right to water and sanitation.
As a Responsible Care company, we strive to protect water as a scarce resource, reduce emissions to water, and continually improve the water efficiency of our sites. We monitor our wastewater as a priority and evaluate its potential impact in accordance with local regulation. We work with local authorities to ensure compliance with safety measures and minimise the environmental impact of wastewater on water bodies and drinking water. This helps protect the natural environment and the wellbeing of our employees and people near our sites.
We have a company-wide system in place to track our water withdrawals and discharges, and many of our sites have environmental management systems in place in line with ISO 14001. We implement opportunities to strengthen our sustainable water management through recycling our process water, minimising our drinking water consumption, and optimising our handling, transport, and treatment of wastewater.
We closely monitor data from all INEOS manufacturing sites to manage our water balance and optimise our water strategy.
Water consumption per site is calculated as the difference between withdrawal and discharge and this balance is shared with each INEOS business for appropriate water planning and actions. This is a particular priority at INEOS sites in water stress areas. We have identified 22 such sites by screening all our locations using the WRI Water Risk Atlas (Aqueduct 3.0, 2019) in accordance with GRI standards. These sites (17% of our 129 manufacturing sites in 2022) account for approximately 2% of our total water withdrawals and discharges, as well as 6% of our total water consumption.
Reducing our water consumption is a group-wide ambition that we put into practice at each of our manufacturing sites. It is also an essential consideration in the design and retrofit of our plants.