SCIweek📰 From sustainability reporting to GSK’s new global headquarters

20 December 2022 | Muriel Cozier

CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project), has recognised Bayer for leadership in corporate transparency and performance on climate change, placing the company on the non-profit’s annual ‘A-List’. Bayer said that based on data reported through CDP’s 2022 Climate Change questionnaire, it is one of a small number of companies achieving an ‘A’ out of nearly 15,000 companies scored. Bayer added that it is the fifth consecutive year that it has held this position.

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Matthias Beringer, Executive Vice President of Public Affairs, Science, Sustainability & HSE at Bayer said ‘CDP holds us to account for reporting on our ambitious efforts in decarbonisation and demonstrates that reporting requirements recently proposed by several governments are attainable.’

BASF also made it onto the CDP ‘A List’ for its water management and forest and climate protection measures.

Making good on plans to build advanced recycling facilities at its manufacturing sites, ExxonMobil has begun operation at its large-scale advanced recycling unit in Baytown, Texas, US.

The facility can process in excess of 80 million pounds of plastic waste, using proprietary technology to break down hard-to-recycle plastics so they can be used as raw material for new products. The company is planning additional global capacity with the aim of recycling 1 billion pounds of plastic each year by the end of 2026.

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‘We are collaborating with government, industry and communities to scale up collection and sorting of plastic waste that will improve recycling rates and help our customers around the world meet their sustainability goals,’ said Karen McKee President, of ExxonMobil Product Solutions Company.

ExxonMobil is also working with partners to assess the potential for large-scale implementation of advanced recycling technologies and opportunities to support improvements to plastic waste collection and sorting in Indonesia and Malaysia.


 Honeywell and Johnson Matthey are collaborating to provide CCS-enabled blue hydrogen at scale. Johnson Matthey is providing its LCH technology, which is coupled with Honeywell’s carbon capture technology.

Now ready for deployment, the companies say that this offering will provide project developers a new option for producing clean hydrogen. The companies say that with the evolving legislative environment, demand for hydrogen is on the rise. They add that their relationship also builds on a recent announcement in which Johnson Matthey is integrating differentiated Honeywell UOP technologies into its CLEANPACE offering for decarbonising existing synthesis gas plants. Honeywell’s solvent carbon dioxide capture and hydrogen solutions allow for carbon dioxide to be captured, transported and stored at a lower cost.

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Barry Glickman, Vice President and General Manager, Honeywell Sustainable Technology Solutions said: ‘Industries need to quicken their pace to reduce emissions in order to meet their carbon reduction targets. This is accelerating the demand for clean hydrogen, which is expected to grow sevenfold by 2050.’


BP has selected Worley along with its global consulting business, Advisian, to be the Lenders’ Technical Adviser for two projects that will lead to Teesside hosting the UK’s first decarbonised industrial clusters.

The contract comprises Net-Zero Teesside Power (NZT Power), a first-of-a-kind fully integrated gas-fired power and carbon capture project, and Northern Endurance Partnership which comprises pipelines that will collect carbon dioxide from multiple industrial emitters in the area.

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Advisian will assess the projects’ technical risks, propose mitigation measures and assist prospective lenders supporting BP’s objective to secure financing. NZT Power is a joint venture between BP and Equinor. The UK Government is backing the development of carbon capture and storage to decarbonise the UK’s industrial clusters.


Driving the discovery and development of oligonucleotide therapeutics, with a focus on novel genetic targets, GSK has said that it will collaborate with Wave Life Sciences, a clinical stage genetic medicines company.

The partners said that the collaboration has an initial four-year research term and combines GSK’s insights from human genetics and its global development and commercial capabilities, with Wave Life Science’ proprietary discovery and drug development platform, PRISM. This platform is said to be the only oligonucleotide platform offering the RNA targeting modalities of editing, splicing and silencing.

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The partners said that the unique capability of oligonucleotides to address a wide range of genomic targets in multiple therapeutic areas is enabling new opportunities to treat a range of diseases, including ones where no medicines currently exist or that have historically been difficult to treat with small molecules or biologics. Wave Life Sciences will receive an upfront payment of $170 million in cash and equity, and is also eligible to receive milestone payments and royalties.

GSK’s President and Chief Scientific Officer, Tony Wood commented: ‘Pairing GSK’s genetic expertise with the best-in-class PRISM platform enables us to accelerate drug discovery for newly identified targets by matching target to modality.’

GSK has also said that it will relocate its global headquarters from Brentford, West London, to central London premises in 2024. The company said that the new location offers close proximity to London’s fast growing global Life Sciences hub. The company added that the move marks a return to central London, from where the company can trace its origins to the Plough Court Pharmacy which was established in the City of London in 1715.

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