Green Chemistry. Innovation in the Chemical Industry

Seminar paper from the year 2017 in the subject Economics - Innovation economics, grade: 1,0, Athens University of Economics and Business, course: BWL - Innovationsmanagement, language: English, abstract: That the global chemical industry with a worth of $2 trillion has an enormous impact on economy, society and the environment, is undisputed. However, with regard to the nowadays unstable economic and political situation worldwide, an increasing rate of development in science and technology and higher customer demands, chemical companies have to struggle for competitive advantages. A key factor for a company to maintain its market position and even enlarge it is successful innovation. Furthermore, the direction of innovation plays a major role for sustainable growth of a company. Nowadays, the basis of innovation in chemical industry is defined by sustainability and environmental protection due to climate change, pollution and therefore stricter regulations. But of course every manufacturing company, as most of the companies in chemical industry manufacture, searches for ways to produce more efficient, faster and cheaper. So might there be a way to combine both desires and transform the chemical industry to be more sustainable and increase their economic benefit at the same time? Even if one can hardly imagine, ¿green¿ chemistry is about to achieve both of these goals and leads to transformational changes in chemical industry due to ¿green¿ innovations in various chemical fields. Pike Research, a market research and consulting firm, predicts that ¿green chemistry represents a market opportunity that will grow from $2.8 billion in 2011 to $98.5 billion in 2020¿ and, which is also extremely promising for chemical companies, that green chemicals will save industry $65.5 billion by 2020. Various chemical inventions and technological developments, for example in the expanding field of catalysis, set the basis for the production of new, less-hazardous and multifunctional chemicals, which is at the same time more efficient and environmentally friendly. Hence, the impact on chemical industry through inventions in the field of green chemistry is obviously enormous. But how exactly do inventions in green chemistry, especially in the promising field of catalysis, affect innovation in chemical industry? Therefore, to find an answer to this question, the field of green chemistry and its potential to foster innovation in chemical industry is going to be examined in this work. [...]