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Air Liquide
About the company
Grade summary
Air Liquide produces one SIN List substance, which is not officially recognised as a chemical of high concern by the EU. The company does not have a method in place to screen and assess the sustainability of its products nor does it have a phase-out strategy for hazardous substances. Air Liquide follows several voluntary standards of good conduct, but has, nonetheless, been involved in several environmental violations over the last ten years, including a bunch of fire incidents and explosions.
Opportunities for improvement
- Physical safety measures have to be strict for gas companies since gases are more difficult to handle than liquids. Compared to its competitor Linde, Air Liquide has a higher number and severity of incidents. Safety measures and training on-site must therefore be accelerated to reduce accidents.
- Generally speaking, gas companies tend to have a less hazardous chemical portfolio. With an already low production of harmful substances, there is definitely a market opportunity for Air Liquide to focus on developing safer alternatives more aggressively.
- For a gas company the most important environmental topics are air quality and less harmful climate gases. Although we found two examples of products dealing with these problems, we would like to see more activities and products tackling air quality and harmful climate gas issues.
Category breakdown
Air Liquide produces one SIN List substance – carbon monoxide – which is not found on the REACH Candidate List or the REACH Authorisation List. The company does not produce any persistent chemicals.
Air Liquide does not have a method in place to screen and assess the sustainability of its products and, therefore, does not investigate the intrinsic hazards of ingredients. The company does not make use of the GreenScreen assessment tool, nor does it follow the principles of green chemistry or exclude substances with toxic properties from new products. The company does, however, actively market safer alternatives on its website.
The French company shares chemical safety information on its website but does not have a phase-out strategy for hazardous substances. Air Liquide is a member of Responsible Care and follows voluntary standards such as a Code of Conduct and a Supplier Code of Conduct.
Between 2010 and 2019, Air Liquide has paid over 7.7 million USD in penalties for 24 environmental violations according to the violation tracker project of Good Jobs First. Most of the controversies are related to fire incidents and explosions. However, the biggest penalty was issued to one of Air Liquide’s subsidiaries for exposing three stevedores to argon gas. For this incident, the company had to pay a fine of 7 million USD.
Download detailed information on controversies (PDF, 118 KB)How did we come to this score?
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