Novozymes: Producing More With Less

What does laundry washing have in common with bread baking, ethanol production, and textile wet-processing? And what do any of these things have to do with climate change and CO₂ reductions? Quite a lot, says Danish firm Novozymes. The company is the world's leading producer of enzymes, which are critical ingredients in the production processes for many industries. Novozymes' enzymes are at work improving everyday consumer goods and enabling both incremental and radical innovations – innovations that can save resources and provide a competitive edge.

Reducing CO₂ is too often thought of as a question of cutting back on quality or quantity, and less often about improving quality and making a better product. Novozymes is committed both to improving products and their environmental performance – in other words, producing more with less.

Small things, huge differences

Enzymes are biological catalysts capable of speeding up biochemical reactions. They are active in any living organism, and they are essential to life on Earth. Enzymes help industrial processes run more efficiently, and small amounts of an enzyme often save large amounts of raw materials – energy, water, and chemicals. As a result, turning to enzymatic solutions in production can be a cost-efficient means to reduce CO₂ emissions. At the same time, enzymatic solutions are usually cheaper than conventional solutions, according to Novozymes.

Life-cycle assessments show the way

With the help of its customers, Novozymes has used life-cycle assessments (LCAs) to analyze the environmental impact and CO₂ footprint of using their enzymes in various applications.

The figure below gives an overview of some LCAs performed since 2005. It shows results in terms of CO₂ savings when enzyme technology replaces conventional technology. The CO₂ savings are determined by adding avoided CO₂ emissions from heat, electricity, raw material, and/or chemical saving obtained by enzyme use and subtracting CO₂ emissions from producing the enzyme.

*CO₂ reduction when enzymes are used in different applications

*Editor's Note: Novozymes says all LCA studies used in its external communications are carried out according to ISO 14040 standards and verified by external experts.

The numbers listed for each industry refer to a single or a few observations under specific conditions. Novozymes cautions that the numbers should therefore be seen as representative sample of what is possible in an assortment of industries. The company says its customers reduced CO2 emissions by 28 million tons in 2008 by switching to enzyme technology in their processes.

What is the potential?

Heating of the water used in clothes washing usually requires large amounts of energy. Novozymes has a long tradition of developing highly efficient enzymes that enable clothes washers to operate effectively even with much-reduced water temperatures. This is especially important in Europe and the United States, where clothes are traditionally washed at elevated temperatures.

Via wash performance tests and life-cycle assessments, Novozymes has assessed the impact of replacing 50% of the surfactants in a standard laundry detergent with enzymes on a cost-neutral basis, while keeping the rest of the ingredients the same in the two products.

In one test, washing was conducted at temperatures ranging from 20°C to 60°C. Results showed that wash performance improves when enzymes replace surfactants in detergents, and that wash temperatures can be lowered without compromising performance. Reduction of the wash temperature saves energy, which prevents emission of pollutants from fossil fuel combustion at power plants and boilers.

Novozymes' own assessment shows that 150g to 450g of CO₂ can be saved per wash with the help of enzymes. That range might sound insignificant, but extrapolate the numbers to, say, all the households in Europe, and suddenly 450g per household is quite substantial.

If all of Europe were to reduce 60°C wash loads to 30°C or 40°C, and if 40°C washes were reduced to 20°C or 30°C, it would reduce emissions by 9-15 million tons of CO₂ annually. With the average care emitting 4 tons of CO2 each year, that's equivalent to pulling three million cars off the road.

– Copenhagen Climate Council