Diverse sectors in chemical industry such as cosmetics, fertilizers, pharmaceuticals and plastics are used to manufacture some 70,000 products. The chemical sector is one of the world’s largest industrial consumers of energy and accounts for 6% of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Most chemicals produced today depend on fossil fuels, either as an energy source or as a feedstock. The chemicals industry will play a crucial role in helping the world achieve the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change and reach global net-zero targets. The chemicals industry is the second largest emitter of CO2, after the steel industry. According to the One Earth Climate Model (OECM) developed by the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), to align with the Paris Agreement goals, the chemicals sector would have a remaining carbon budget of 19.6 gigatons for energy-related emissions between 2020 and 2050. Research funded by PwC Germany and conducted by UTS’s Institute for Sustainable Futures indicates that the chemicals industry’s global emissions can be significantly reduced through rapid investment in and development of low- and zero-carbon production. The study focused on the seven major base chemicals—methanol, ammonia, benzene, toluene, xylene (BTX aromatics), ethylene, and propylene (light olefins) which accounted for 74% of the industry’s energy use (excluding electrical energy) and on G20 markets, responsible for 97% of all energy-related emissions in the chemicals sector. This chapter covers sustainable finance initiatives undertaken in different sectors such as chemicals, banking, insurance, mutual fund, pension funds, energy , cement and steel ,materials and building, transportation and logistics, automobile, agriculture, food and forest sector, technology, consumer sector etc.
