Orion Engineered Carbons nets Gold rating from EcoVadis

HOUSTON—Notch another sustainability accolade in the belt for Orion Engineered Carbons, a specialty chemical supplier for a range of industries, including tire and non-tire rubber products.

Orion said Feb. 15 that it had achieved a Gold rating from EcoVadis, an independent assessor of a variety of sustainability metrics.

The company's overall score also improved over last year, increasing from 72 to 77—only one point away from a Platinum rating.

The score puts Orion in the 99th percentile of companies assessed by EcoVadis.

"The way Orion was able to jump five points in one year and reach the top 1 percent of companies shows how the many improvements we have made can add up to a big change," Orion CEO Corning Painter said. "We are so close to Platinum now and will continue to strive for that goal as we deliver sustainable solutions to our customers."

EcoVadis, which assesses more than 100,000 companies across more than 200 industries, measures environmental impact, ethics, procurement, governance and human rights as it considers the sustainability score.

As recent upgrades, Orion has installed emission control equipment at its U.S. plants. The company produces its chemicals, including recovered carbon black and circular carbon black, using pyrolysis oils from end-of-life tires and bio-based feedstocks (as opposed to fossil fuels).

Headquartered in Luxembourg, Orion also plans to expand production of acetylene-based additives for lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles.