Barriers to Sustainable Manufacturing in the Chemical Industry: A Qualitative Study

The manufacturing industry accounts for at least 20% of global CO2 emissions, making it a key player against global warming. But despite significant progress, the industry still faces barriers preventing the adoption of more sustainable processes. To identify these barriers, we interviewed 15 decision-makers in the specialty chemical and pharmaceutical industry, isolating the criteria driving their decisions and how these interact with sustainability. We found three main barriers to sustainable manufacturing: the lack of a standardised way to measure sustainability; the lack of a holistic approach to sustainability encompassing economic, environmental, and social factors; the lack of economic incentives to adopt more sustainable practices. While a tax on externalities (such as emissions) would ensure the consideration of sustainability in decision-making, it requires solving all three barriers to be implemented effectively. In the meantime, we propose the use of decision support systems such as multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) as an easy way to account for sustainability while facilitating a trade-off between it and costs.