Several of Europe’s largest chemical companies have concluded that hazardous substances are not sufficiently relevant to include in their mandatory sustainability reporting under the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), according to a new analysis by pollution watchdog ChemSec.
The assessment compares CSRD-aligned reports from companies ranked in this year’s ChemScore and represents the first independent review of how the chemical sector is responding to the EU’s most comprehensive sustainability reporting framework to date.
“We wanted to understand what the chemical industry actually reports under CSRD, who is doing a credible job, and who is avoiding the issue. Our goal is to highlight best practices and help companies improve,” said Sonja Haider, Head of Sustainable Finance at ChemSec.
Under the CSRD, companies are required to carry out a double materiality assessment to determine which environmental, social and governance issues are significant enough to warrant disclosure. ChemSec found that only three of the 13 EU-headquartered chemical companies assessed — Bayer, Lanxess and Merck — identified hazardous substances as a material issue.
The remaining companies — AkzoNobel, Arkema, BASF, Evonik, Henkel, Solvay, Syensqo, TotalEnergies, Umicore and Yara — either stated that hazardous substances are not material to their business, omitted the topic from their reporting, or failed to disclose the information in line with CSRD requirements, despite being major producers or users of hazardous chemicals.
“I find it a bit absurd that chemical companies can argue that their production and use of hazardous chemicals aren’t material to their environmental impact,” Haider said.
CSRD includes around 500 potential data points, though ChemSec’s analysis focused specifically on pollution-related disclosures, which it considers most relevant to the chemicals sector.
Of the 40 global chemical companies included in the ChemScore index, only the 13 companies headquartered in the EU were required to report under CSRD this year. Non-EU companies with significant operations in Europe are expected to fall within the scope of the directive from 2028.
ChemSec said the full set of disclosures reviewed in the analysis is available through ChemScore, its sustainability benchmarking tool for the global chemicals industry.
