Albemarle Introduces Next Product in the Earthwise Portfolio of Sustainable, Eco-Friendly Solutions

April 12th, 2012

Innovative polymeric fire safety solution is result of technology license from Dow

(BATON ROUGE, La.) April 12, 2011–Albemarle Corporation (NYSE: ALB), a leader in the development, manufacture and marketing of flame retardants, announced today that it has expanded its Earthwise™ platform of sustainable products by introducing a new polymeric flame retardant for use in extruded (XPS) and expanded (EPS) polystyrene applications.

This new technology, licensed from Dow Global Technologies LLC (DGTL), a subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW), will be commercialized under Albemarle’s Earthwise brand and provides a stable, high molecular weight, non-PBT (Persistent, Bioaccumulative, Toxic) polymeric technology for use in these demanding applications. This new technology is expected to become the preferred choice to meet critical fire safety requirements for both XPS and EPS.

Albemarle’s agreement to manufacture and sell this premium technology confirms the company’s commitment to provide customers with sustainable, innovative fire safety solutions that meet the increasing demands of global regulations and standards, such as energy efficiency and sustainable design for these thermal insulation materials.

“This expansion of our Earthwise portfolio is another sign of our position as the industry leader in flame retardants, and joins our other key polymeric platforms, Green Armor™ and our family of brominated polystyrene products, SAYTEX® HP-3010, HP-7010 and 621,” said Brian Carter, Division Vice President of global brominated flame retardants.  “Albemarle expects to commercialize this new technology in 2014 and is already working closely with customers to fully qualify the product in both applications.”

Albemarle’s flame retardant business is part of the Company’s fire safety solutions within the Polymer Solutions business segment.

About Albemarle
Albemarle Corporation, headquartered in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is a leading global developer, manufacturer, and marketer of highly-engineered specialty chemicals for consumer electronics, petroleum refining, utilities, packaging, construction, automotive/transportation, pharmaceuticals, crop protection, food-safety and custom chemistry services. The Company is committed to global sustainability and is advancing its eco-practices and solutions in its three business segments, Polymer Solutions, Catalysts and Fine Chemistry. Corporate Responsibility Magazine selected Albemarle to its prestigious “100 Best Corporate Citizens” list for 2010 and 2011.  Albemarle employs approximately 4,000 people and serves customers in approximately 100 countries. Albemarle regularly posts information to www.albemarle.com, including notification of events, news, financial performance, investor presentations and webcasts, Regulation G reconciliations, SEC filings, and other information regarding the Company, its businesses and the markets we serve.

Whether consumers are watching a television, sitting on a sofa, taking a commercial airline flight, or swallowing ibuprofen to relieve a headache, Albemarle products are there making lives safer and more livable.  For more information, visit www.earthwiseinside.com.

Albemarle Media Contact:  Ashley Mendoza, (225) 388-7137, Ashley.Mendoza@albemarle.com

Albemarle Investor Relations Contact: Lorin Crenshaw, (225) 388-7322, Lorin.Crenshaw@albemarle.com

About The Dow Chemical Company
Dow (NYSE: DOW) combines the power of science and technology to passionately innovate what is essential to human progress. The Company connects chemistry and innovation with the principles of sustainability to help address many of the world’s most challenging problems such as the need for clean water, renewable energy generation and conservation, and increasing agricultural productivity. Dow’s diversified industry-leading portfolio of specialty chemical, advanced materials, agrosciences and plastics businesses delivers a broad range of technology-based products and solutions to customers in approximately 160 countries and in high growth sectors such as electronics, water, energy, coatings and agriculture. In 2011, Dow had annual sales of $60 billion and employed approximately 52,000 people worldwide. The Company’s more than 5,000 products are manufactured at 197 sites in 36 countries across the globe. References to “Dow” or the “Company” mean The Dow Chemical Company and its consolidated subsidiaries unless otherwise expressly noted. More information about Dow can be found at www.dow.com.

The Dow Chemical Company Media Contact:  Erik van Oosten, (989) 636-5090, evanoosten@dow.com

“Safe Harbor” Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Statements in this press release regarding Albemarle Corporation’s business that are not historical facts are “forward-looking statements” that involve risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see “Risk Factors” in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K.

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Taking the Green Course

December 26th, 2011

Augusta National insists it’s a lot more environmentally friendly than its reputation.

By TIMOTHY J. CARROLL

AUGUSTA, Ga. — The color of Augusta National Golf Course is definitely green: as in the grass, as in the jackets, as in the cups and napkins used to make litter invisible during the televising of the Masters; as in the money produced by the annual gathering of the game’s greats; and as in the envy most golfers feel when they compare this course to the ones they play.

But there is another type of green that the club is trying to reach: the green as in environmentally friendly.

“At Augusta National, we strive to be environmentally friendly because it’s the right thing to do,” says Billy Payne, chairman of the club.

Augusta National is not among the roughly 300 golf courses that have received a stamp of approval from the environmental-activist organization Audubon International.

For one thing, this is because the famously private club declines to open up for outside inspection. But Ron Dodson, president of Audubon International, says he is pleased the club wants to be seen as green — if only because it helps remind players and course managers that golf is a game played in nature.

Indeed, critics often accuse golf courses of wasting water, overusing pesticides and fertilizers, and building green spaces that are dedicated more to humans than to nature. The National Audubon Society put Augusta National on a list of “bad” courses in a magazine article 10 years ago, about the same time that a book predicted the club’s loblolly pines would soon die, victims not just of age but also of overfertilization.

The pines, Augusta National officials are quick to point out, are still alive. The critics, a club source adds, wrongly assumed that excessive use of fertilizer was necessary to make the course so green.

Michael Hurdzan, a golf-course designer and consultant, concedes that nature and golf courses have not always gotten along; 50 years ago or so, greenkeepers routinely used products loaded with cadmium, lead, arsenic and a substance later known as Agent Orange. Greenkeepers often got sick as a result of working with these chemicals.

But, Dr. Hurdzan adds, “starting with the Rachel Carson days of the 1960s,” golf courses have made steady progress in responsible use of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, as reflected in tests of water quality. “What you would have found with a test [for pesticides] 20 years ago is different than what you would have found 10 years ago, and is different than what you would find next week,” he says.

Augusta National has routinely conducted such tests for years here on its 365 acres next to the South Carolina border. The club draws its nonpotable water from three natural sources: the Savannah River, Rae’s Creek, which winds through the grounds, and the two ponds on the course. Officials say they test the water before spraying it on the course and again at a spot where it leaves the property, and say the chemical makeup is nearly identical.

The club formerly used blue and black dye in its ponds but says it stopped doing so in 2000. With television in mind, however, it still occasionally tests dyes and says it might start again at some point.

To read the rest of this story, click here.

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GE Invests in High-Tech Green Building Outfit

September 19th, 2011

General Electric is making a foray into green buildings by investing in Project Frog, which uses various technologies to speed up new building design and construction.

GE Energy Financial Services will be one of four companies to invest $22 million in Project Frog, GE said today. The other three are venture capital companies: Claremont Creek Ventures, Greener Capital Partners, and RockPort Capital Partners.

The money will be used to expand Project Frog’s sales, and GE will install one of the company’s prefabricated buildings at the GE Learning Center in Ossining, N.Y.

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White House Rejects EPA Proposal to Strengthen Smog Standards

September 19th, 2011

On Friday, September 2, 2011, the White House directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to withdraw and reconsider a proposal to strengthen National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ground-level ozone, the primary ingredient in smog. The announcement marked the first time that the Obama Administration formally returned one of its own agencies proposals, and it could indicate heightened executive scrutiny of forthcoming rules economic impacts. The heart of the Clean Air Act, NAAQS, set maximum levels for six criteria pollutants at levels necessary to protect public health and welfare, implemented through State Implementation Plans covering a broad range of  sources. The ozone NAAQS were last revised in 2008, when the Bush Administration set a primary standard of .075 parts-per-million (“ppm”�) — more lenient than the .06-.07 ppm range recommended by EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee.

For more information on smog standards in your city view:
Top Toxic States, Who’s Doing New Studies?

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Posted in Air and water, Albemarle, Alternative fuels, Chemistry, Company Information, EPA, Flame Retardants, Food products, Global Business, Technology

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Scientists Aboard the Odyssey Make Stop in Baton Rouge to Meet Albemarle Corporation

July 24th, 2011

Albemarle Corporation, Ocean Alliance and the University of Southern Maine are working together to study the impacts of recent oil spills, natural disasters and collecting tissue samples from whales in the Gulf of Mexico.

The ten-person team aboard a 93-foot Odyssey sailboat is taking a short mid summer break from their 14-week scientific voyage and visiting Baton Rouge where Albemarle Corporation, the expedition’s primary sponsor, is located.

The sailboat is docked in the city to give Albemarle Corporation and the Odyssey crew a chance to meet on Friday and on Saturday, members of the crew were at the city docks downtown from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. discussing their work with the public.

When the crew spots a whale, a sample is taken and used for genetic testing and to grow cell lines. “The Gulf is kind of a microcosm of the larger marine ecosystem,” said Iain Kerr, CEO of Ocean Alliance. The goal is to perform sampling for five years to get an overall picture of the impacts last year’s oil leak had on whales — the top of the food chain — and the ecosystem of the deep water Gulf, he said.

Although it is too early to reach a conclusion, their initial results are showing some cell death and DNA damage cultured from the whales that are exposed to oil or dispersant.

For more information of this voyage and to learn more about Albemarle and their commitment to sustainability, Ocean Alliance and The Wise Laboratory at the University of Southern Maine, click here.

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Posted in Albemarle, Biofuels, Chemistry, Company Information, Conferences, Energy, Flame Retardants, Global Business, Green Chemistry, Meet the Earthwise Team, Recycling, Sustainability, Transportation

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New Green Careers Grow as Sustainability is a Critical Business Goal

July 14th, 2011

Jobs opportunities may seem slim, but positions tied to sustainability are on the rise. Companies are creating job titles such as chief sustainability executive or VP of earth stewardship. These new roles have responsibilities that include: finding better ways to protect the planet, save energy, minimize the carbon foot-print, maintaining an environmentally friendly work place and overseeing their sustainability efforts and communications with an annual green report.

The number of online job postings containing the keyword ‘sustainability’ quadrupled, which aggregates online job postings.

What new positions is your company adding that contain sustainable keywords? If so, we’d love to know.

Need a good reference for eco-employment? Check out: Greenjobs, a guide to eco friendly employment.

Read more about the sustainability job market as covered in the Wall Street Journal, click here.

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Posted in Albemarle, Consumer eco-products, Economic development, Electric, Electronics, Energy, Global Business, Green Chemistry, Innovation and ideas, Sustainability, Uncategorized, fire safety

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A ‘Green’ Lottery With a 4 Million Jackpot

July 11th, 2011

Carbon Lottery is the first lottery that helps combat climate change. Set up by Sterling Waterford and Splinter Media, the Malta-based lottery not only offers a EUR 4 million cash jackpot, but also functions as a new way of incentivising businesses and members of the public to offset their carbon footprint.

To read more about Carbon Lottery, click here.

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Using less, Living Better Drives Green Week Conference

June 22nd, 2011

Green Week is the biggest annual conference on European environmental policy and took place from May 24th to the 27th in Brussels and around Europe. This year’s theme: “Resource Efficiency – Using less, living better”.

The conference addressed the problem of resource depletion and scarcity, as well as the challenges and opportunities presented by constraints on resources. Albemarle’s European Advocacy Departmentsustainable growth. Over the past decade, the conference has established itself as ‘the event not to miss’ for anyone involved with protecting Europe’s environment. attended this conference that aimed to encourage a shift towards a resource-efficient, low-carbon, low-waste economy to achieve

Sustainability topics ran the gamut of industries and markets. Presentations and discussions focused on phosphorous depletion (focus on agricultural/food use), green chemistry, sustainable consumption and production (SCP), as well as Green Public Procurement (GPP).

Some of the Presentations/discussion panels included:

If you missed the event and want to learn more about Europe’s sustainability progress, visit the Green Week 2011 site.

For more on Albemarle’s sustainability initiatives, visit the Albemarle and the Earthwise sites.

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Posted in Air and water, Albemarle, Alternative fuels, Chemistry, Company Information, Conferences, Consumer attitudes, Consumer eco-products, EPA, Eco-awards, Energy, European Chemical Industry Council, Events, Global Business, Uncategorized

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What Are the True Impacts of Recent Oil Spill and Other Natural Disasters in the Gulf of Mexico?

June 10th, 2011

14-week Scientific Voyage to Study Important Ocean Habits and Ecosystem.

Albemarle Corporation, Ocean Alliance and the University of Southern Maine are coming together to study the impacts of recent oil spills and natural disasters in the Gulf of Mexico. The study will last 14-weeks and is expected to start from Key West, FL with a ten person team using a 93 foot floating laboratory called Odyssey. The team will collect samples from fish, squid, krill, sperm and Brydes whales, and the water from depths of up to 3,000 feet to try to monitor and gauge the health of the Gulf ecosystem. The start of this expedition was set to begin on June 8th.

For more information of this voyage and to learn more about Albemarle, Ocean Alliance and The Wise Laboratory at the University of Southern Maine, click here.

Do you know of other studies around this important environmental topic?

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Environmentalists Against Flame Retardant Chemicals Wage Life-Threatening Bans.

May 19th, 2011

Activists believe that flame retardant chemicals can be found in breast milk and blood samples and may eventually cause cancer. This argument has pressured the United States and Europe to ban some of these chemicals but as a result, this contributes to the death toll around the world. Read full article here.

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