Our Approach to Responsible Manufacturing and Mining
Chemours is committed to the environment and our communities, and we strive to manufacture responsibly at our sites and to be good stewards of the land we operate on. We focus on two key areas: reducing our fluorinated organic chemical (FOC) process emissions at our manufacturing facilities, and restoring and conserving land where we mine raw materials for our Titanium Technologies business.
Safeguarding and restoring natural habitats helps increase the availability of clean water in watersheds, provides protection from the impacts of severe weather events, and enhances natural CO2 sequestration processes. We’re integrating nature into our corporate sustainability strategy and are actively working to enhance nature and ecosystem resilience across our sites using the Taskforce on Nature Related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) guidance.
Air and Water FOC Emissions Abatement
We have and continue to make significant investments in state of-the-art emissions control technologies at our manufacturing sites. We are committed to eliminating 99% or more of our FOC process emissions to air and water across our manufacturing sites globally by 2030. This goal’s 2018 baseline is based upon a comprehensive inventory of FOC process emissions.
The FOC Air and Water Technology Team develops technology solutions and refines our FOC implementation roadmap to achieve our 2030 goal. The team also tracks and reports annual progress toward reducing these emissions, including site-specific initiatives that incorporate known abatement technologies and cutting-edge research to explore innovative methods or closed-loop manufacturing options to make further progress. At each manufacturing site, we followed a standardized approach to report emissions data, using both measured data and calculated estimates when measured data was not available.
Mining Operations
Chemours is the only U.S. producer of titanium and zirconium minerals and one of only two domestic producers of rare earth minerals. Our Titanium Technologies business segment operates mineral sands mining and separation operations in Florida and Georgia to supply our TiO2 pigment manufacturing facilities with mineral feedstock and to recover and sell other valuable mineral products. While mining affects hundreds of acres per year, the impact is temporary as the mine pits are successively opened then refilled with sand tails, and the land is continually reclaimed.
We are committed to leaving each mining site in a condition comparable to its pre-mine condition. Through continuous reclamation, we work to re-establish the soil and plant vegetation in mined areas after mineral extraction is complete, which in turn, allows native wildlife to quickly return. Building on our current process of stakeholder engagement and state and federal compliance, we also work to pursue and apply responsible mining principles. In 2024, we maintained Responsible Care® 14001 certifications for our Georgia and Florida mineral operations, which helps us to assess a range of social and environmental impacts within our operations, with a focus on land and water management and biodiversity.
Manufacturing Sites
At our manufacturing sites, we continue to serve the surrounding communities by installing drinking water infrastructure ranging from in-house treatment systems to public water connections. At our Fayetteville Works manufacturing site in North Carolina, we’ve invested around $160 million in our off-site program and installed permanent replacement drinking water solutions for over 7,100 residents as of December 31, 2024.
We also seek opportunities at or near each site and work with partners to enhance or restore the local habitat. Efforts range from identifying and relocating protected plant and animal species to improving the habitats located on adjacent or nearby lands.
Chemours partners with Tandem Global (formerly Wildlife Habitat Council), whose certification program is the only voluntary sustainability standard designed for broad-based nature enhancement and conservation education activities on corporate landholdings. The certification recognizes meaningful wildlife habitat management, conservation education programs, and community outreach initiatives through an objective, third party evaluation.
Chemours’ Tandem Global programs are led by our sites and engage employee volunteers for many initiatives. Programs can include managing wildlife, creating or improving habitats, providing conservation education, or a combination of all three.
2024 Actions Toward Responsible Manufacturing and Mining
Continued Progress on FOC Emissions Reductions
We continue to make progress against our 2030 Corporate Responsibility Commitment goal, eliminating an additional 292 MT of FOC process emissions across our sites in 2024. Since 2018, we’ve reduced our FOC process emissions by 76%, or 1,253 MT.
We continue to invest in technologies and install projects to reduce FOC emissions, which include HFC-23 and HCFC22 emissions, at multiple facilities, and are evaluating the effectiveness of this work through direct measurement and refined engineering estimates of emissions sources. In 2024, we completed a project to recover and recycle HCFC22 emissions at our Louisville Works site in Kentucky and implemented improvements at several of our manufacturing sites including the Dordrecht Works and Washington Works sites. For our Dordrecht Works site in the Netherlands, 2024 was the first full year of demonstrating a series of projects to reduce FOC air emissions by 80% from baseline permitted values. These projects have performed as expected and have achieved target performance.
Our work toward reducing air FOC process emissions continues with 15 active projects underway globally. We continue to advance our understanding of water technologies and explore emerging technologies to further advance our progress toward our 2030 FOC emissions reductions goal. All reporting metrics surrounding our FOC emissions follow U.S. EPA’s interim guidance for PFAS destruction and disposal, which was issued in April 2024.
Assessing Nature and Biodiversity Impacts
In partnership with Tandem Global, we completed nature and biodiversity assessments at our sites in line with TNFD and UNEP guidance. As part of this work, we also launched the Power of ChemisTREE program, which exemplifies our commitment to renewing habitats and fostering conservation across our operational sites and in the communities where we work. Our Nature Team continues to work with Tandem Global to create a comprehensive framework that will establish and align priorities with our corporate vision and enable our manufacturing sites to further their nature efforts.
We continue to be industry leaders in addressing biodiversity concerns related to mineral extraction. In the normal course of mine planning, we conduct intensive field surveys to identify sensitive plant and animal species and develop comprehensive plans to mitigate potential impacts. We also sponsor and support research to better understand the natural succession of wetlands re-established on mined lands, the population dynamics of gopher tortoises and avian communities around our mines, and invertebrate populations on reclaimed lands.
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