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Hanwha Solutions
About the company
Grade Summary
With a meager five points in total, Hanwha Solutions narrowly escapes ending up among ChemScore’s bottom three performers. The company produces no hazardous substances within the EU or US. However, there is no data available about the 83 percent of Hanwha Solutions’ production that takes place outside of these regions, granting the company just three points in the first category. This low transparency is a big issue for investors, as it makes it hard to do a proper evaluation of the risks connected to the product portfolio. Another poor area for Hanwha Solutions is the Lack of Controversies category, where the Korean company scores zero points due to several fatal accidents and a large emission scandal. It also fails to collect any points in the Management & Transparency category, but is awarded two points for actively marketing safer alternatives, which saves Hanwha Solutions from being among the very worst performers.
How did we come to this score?
Opportunities for improvement
- Hanwha states: “We are committed to enriching the future with sustainable solutions for all.” We did indeed find greener and less hazardous products, but the company’s chemical management strategy remains invisible. We would like to see Hanwha implement a systematic tool for assessing intrinsic hazards, as well as make timed plans for phasing and designing out hazardous chemicals in new products.
- ChemScore only evaluates technologies that are used in practice and at scale, making an overall contribution to sustainability, so Hanwha’s chemical recycling method of pyrolysis hasn’t been rewarded. The same goes for recycling PVC, since PVC contains hazardous ingredients and recycling it may pollute secondary material streams. We would like to see a clear circular strategy, where hazardous substances are phased-out, from Hanwha.
- We can only rank 17 percent of Hanwha’s overall production, since the rest takes place outside the EU and US, where there are no reliable and publicly available sources for identifying producers of hazardous chemicals. Informing ChemSec about hazardous chemical production outside the EU and US could raise the company’s score considerably.
Category breakdown
Hanwa Solutions produces/uses no highly hazardous substances. However, much about the company’s product portfolio is unknown, due to its large production that takes place outside of the EU and US.
Please note that there is no available data for the 83 percent of the company’s production that takes place outside of the EU and US. Lower EU/US production means higher uncertainty with regard to the total production of hazardous chemicals, which will have a negative impact on the company’s score in this category.
Hanwha Solutions does not have a method in place to screen and assess the sustainability of its products, thus not assessing the intrinsic hazards of ingredients. It does not exclude substances with toxic properties from its new products. Hanwha Solutions actively markets safer alternatives both on its own website as well as on ChemSec Marketplace. The company has no true circular product, process or innovation. Hanwha Solutions does not use bio-based resources. Nor does it source or treat recycled materials in a sustainable way, which is one of the key elements of a circular economy. Hanwha Solutions is not actively reducing the hazardous waste it generates.
The Korean company does not produce only sustainable products, and it does not have a timed phase-out strategy for hazardous substances that go beyond regulatory compliance. It does not share chemical safety information on its website and it is not following a credible code of conduct standard. Hanwha Solutions did not respond to ChemSec’s attempts to communicate around its ChemScore ranking and it does not share any information about what kind of chemicals it produces in regions with low regulatory demands for transparency (e.g. Asia). Hanwha Solutions does not have a circular economy program in place, and it is lacking objective and measurable circular economy targets.
Hanwha Solutions have had numerous incidents related to its operations. A large number of persons have been killed in incidents where explosions have occurred. Other than this, Hanwha Solutions was part of a scandal in 2019, where it colluded together with other chemical producers to avoid fines on emissions of Sulphur oxides by fabricating test results.
Download Controversies Hanwha Solutions (PDF, 116 KB)How did we come to this score?
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