Braskem has always kept sustainable development at the center of its strategy. We recently renewed our sustainable development goals and made new commitments, aligned with the UN 2030 agenda. These commitments are divided into 7 dimensions, one of which is the fight against climate change, in which we have the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 15% by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.
Efforts to reduce our emissions, however, have not started now. Between 2008 and 2020, we achieved a reduction of more than 17% in the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions. We achieved 94% of the long-term climate change target planned for 2020, which avoided the emission of almost 30 million tons of CO2. This result is the equivalent of planting more than 200 million trees.
We also made important advances in our portfolio, investing in the development of renewable raw material products. I'm green™, for example, the first plastic from a renewable source produced on an industrial scale in the world, is a polyethylene that uses sugar cane as its raw material.
In addition to serving different market sectors with the same performance as conventional resins, the resin produced from sugar cane captures up to 3.09 tons of carbon dioxide during its production process, contributing twice to the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. stove. We are convinced that Green PE can transform the sector's value chain not only in Brazil, but also promote a significant change in the global market.
The demand for biopolymers has been increasing consistently around the world and, to keep up with this trend, we approved, at the beginning of this year, the expansion of the green ethylene manufacturing plant, the basis for the development of renewable resins. The Triunfo industrial unit, in Rio Grande do Sul, received an investment of more than R$ 60 million to expand its production capacity to 260 thousand tons of green ethylene by the end of 2022.
Another initiative carried out in search of reducing our CO emissions2, are the investments made in the acquisition of energy from renewable sources. In 2020, we signed two more contracts to supply solar energy for more than 20 years to our industrial units. The first of these, with the French multinational Voltalia, has the potential to reduce CO emissions2 by 130 thousand tons over the contract period. The second agreement, signed with the company Canadian Solar Inc., has the potential to reduce emissions of up to 500 thousand tons of CO2 .
We have already made a lot of progress in the search for more sustainable operations. With constant investment in research and innovation, we believe that we will be able to increasingly offer sustainable solutions to the global market. This is how we are going to transform the world into a more sustainable place for everyone today. This time and the next.
By Roberto Lopes Pontes Simões
CEO of Braskem
