Technology-driven sustainability
Sustainability in manufacturing is a performance advantage, says Burjis Godrej, executive director of Godrej Agrovet and managing director of Astec LifeSciences
Sustainability in manufacturing is often framed as an obligation, something enterprises must accommodate to remain compliant or acceptable in the eyes of regulators and consumers. That framing is increasingly outdated.
In chemicals, sustainability is becoming a performance advantage. The companies that will lead in the next decade will not treat environmental responsibility as a parallel track to productivity. They will embed it into process design itself, using technology and chemistry to build operations that are cleaner, steadier and more competitive.
Two ideas sit at the centre of this shift: continuous manufacturing and green chemistry. One changes how we run reactions. The other changes how we design them. Together, they offer a practical pathway to reduce waste, cut energy use, improve quality and strengthen market credibility. They also demonstrate a broader truth that the industry is beginning to internalise: responsible production is not only possible at scale, it is increasingly the most rational way to scale.
Steady-state manufacturing
Batch manufacturing has served the chemical industry well for decades. It offers flexibility and, for many chemistries, it remains the right approach. However, batch processes also carry inherent inefficiencies. Each cycle begins with ramp-up and ends with shutdown. Temperature and concentration profiles fluctuate. Reaction conditions drift. Yield and impurity profiles vary, sometimes subtly, sometimes significantly.
China’ s own experience illustrates how modernising process technology can enhance resource efficiency at scale. Projects have demonstrated
Equipment at Astec Life Sciences factory
commercial-scale retrofits in energyintensive chemical production that are expected to save over 600,000 tonnes of coal equivalent in energy and avoid more than 15 million tonnes / year of CO 2
-equivalent emissions. This highlights how technology-enabled optimisation can drive competitiveness through efficiency gains.
Continuous and flow-based manufacturing techniques approach the same problem differently. Instead of repeating cycles, they aim for steady-state operation. Reactions are maintained within tighter windows, residence time is controlled precisely and heat transfer is more efficient.
Flow systems reduce these risks by design. They keep reactions stable, limit over-processing and reduce batch-to-batch variation. That stability translates into higher selectivity and fewer off-spec runs. Less rework means less solvent use, fewer purification cycles and lower waste generation. Even when the chemistry itself remains unchanged, the process architecture improves its sustainability footprint.
There is another benefit that is often overlooked. Continuous systems make it easier to monitor reactions in real time. With the right analytics, operators can detect deviations early and correct them before they become losses. That capability is not simply about efficiency; it is about preventing waste before it is created.
Beyond efficiency, continuous manufacturing can also strengthen safety by tightening process control and enabling real-time monitoring across critical parameters. The US FDA’ s self-audit guidance on continuous manufacturing highlights how a welldesigned continuous process depends on robust control strategies and monitoring systems, which help reduce the risk of deviations and improve operational reliability.
Green chemistry
If continuous manufacturing improves how reactions are run, green chemistry improves how they are conceived. At its core, green chemistry is not a slogan but a discipline of design. It asks chemists to rethink feedstocks, solvents, catalysts, reaction pathways and energy inputs so
54 SPECIALITY CHEMICALS MAGAZINE ESTABLISHED 1981