ABOUT SAFIC ALCAN

• Founded in 1847, Safic Alcan is a distributor and manufacturer of chemicals, oils and additives for a range of industries, including the cosmetic and personal care markets.
• The company is focusing its efforts on eco-design, with cosmetics front and centre. This attention has the potential to shift the global market, thanks to the company’s wide-reaching footprint of 25 offices across Europe, the Middle East, China, US, Canada and Mexico.
• Safic Alcan divides its business operations into two categories: Performance Products and Life Sciences. Performance Products accounts for 65% of sales and includes polyurethane, rubber, plastics, coatings, inks, construction products, industrial specialities, adhesives and sealants. Life Sciences accounts for the remaining 35% and includes health, wellness, nutrition, personal care and pharmaceuticals.
• The latter operation has seen the creation of solid beauty products come to the fore, with the company’s waterless ingredients helping to reduce reliance on blue gold. This, in turn, gives brands the freedom to package products without water-tight plastic.
• One such ingredient is its Black Delight Soft Paste Shampoo - an innovative product that can replace both liquid and dry, aerosol-based shampoos. Its texture means it can be stored in less impactful aluminium and glass, while its lack of water reduces its size, requiring fewer materials to package and ship.
• As a signatory of the ten principles of the United Nations Global Compact initiative in 2018, Safic Alcan has joined over 16,000 companies in signifying its commitment to sustainable environmental, societal and governance models. However, Safic Alcan’s own analysis of key focus areas places environmental impacts, risks and climate change as low priority based on shareholders expectations and potential business impact.
• Despite this, in 2020 Safic Alcan’s French (Safic Alcan France) and British (Safic Alcan UK) subsidiaries achieved EcoVadis Gold status for their corporate social responsibility.
• In the same year, other subsidiaries Chemspec and Safic Alcan Necarbo BV were awarded EcoVadis Silver status.
• It must be noted that as a distributor, consolidator and packaging facilitator of existing products, Safic Alcan is in part reliant on the practices of its original manufacturers to meet its environmental goals. The internal aim for Safic Alcan is to achieve 80% supplier compliance with its Third Party Code of Conduct (2020). In 2021 it reported this compliance was 66%. The Third Party Code of Conduct is limited in its scope.
• Today, approximately 700 people are employed by Safic Alcan. In 2020, the company reported revenues of EUR 602 million (USD 646 million), with 86% of sales occurring in the EMEA region. Approximately 80% of Safic Alcan’s staff are located in the EMEA offices.
• In June 2022, Safic Alcan shared its acquisition of plastic additives chemical distributor ‘European Additives GmbH, Inc’ to further expand its additives portfolio in Europe.