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Case study: Lubrizol

Lubrizol is a speciality chemical company founded in the USA in 1928. It currently employs around 7,500 people across more than 45 global sites. Lubrizol develops products for multiple industries including agriculture; energy and resources; beauty and personal care; building and construction; coatings; consumer goods and home care; electronics and IT; healthcare; and transportation.

The company has a strong, demonstrable commitment to sustainability and environmental responsibility. A 16% reduction in GHG emissions and an 18% reduction in their waste to landfill, demonstrating their commitment to reducing their climate impact, is showcased in Lubrizol’s 2024 Sustainability Report. Lubrizol’s sustainability strategy is guided by responsible citizenship principles and the company has committed to contributing over 100,000 employee volunteer hours globally by 2028, many of which go to environmental and wildlife causes.

The UK site has been based in Hazelwood, Derbyshire since 1947. The site employs approximately 250 people, out of 400 employed in the UK, and specialises in developing and manufacturing coatings and additives for a wide range of industries including transportation, industrial, printing, textiles, emerging technology and cosmetics. It also develops additives and performance polymers for the automotive, fuel and industrial sectors.

Lubrizol’s Hazelwood site is committed to educating staff about the benefits of Nature-based solutions (NBS) to wildlife, the environment and personal wellbeing. They particularly highlight the importance of zero to landfill and aim for all employees to reduce resource wastage, as well as encourage the reduction of energy usage.

Engagement with NBS was driven initially by the Corporate Social Responsibility goals and is used to help meet non-negotiable environmental regulations. The ISO 14001 certification has helped to keep improving NBSs over time as the accreditation requires organisations to demonstrate ongoing activity that protects and supports the environment. These activities are assessed and verified by an external body which creates accountability. Alongside this, green credentials were identified as a key factor in attracting new talent to the company. Thus, engaging with NBS is part of the organisation’s wider development plan in terms of talent development, recruitment and retention.

Structures that support NBS

The groups are run by employees in a percentage of their paid time - an allowance that fluctuates according to job role. The volunteer hours allowance is part of the organisation-wide Creating Community Chemistry programme. This is a global community engagement programme launched by Lubrizol in 2024 which aligns Lubrizol’s global volunteering and fundraising efforts with priorities of Good Health and Wellbeing, Quality Education, and Sustainability. The programme prioritises projects that benefit the local communities of individual sites.

The SERG helps everyone to work together to achieve the Corporate Social Responsibility goals. This group has been responsible for embedding long-term behavioural change amongst employees through initiatives like ‘Save it 6’ (switch off, turn down, save energy, reduce, reuse, recycle) which began around a decade ago.

This group co-ordinates multiple NBSs and wildlife preservation activities on the site, including installing bird boxes, bat boxes, owl boxes, and kestrel boxes to protect habitats and encourage species diversity. Employees can dedicate their volunteer hours allowance to whichever aspect of NBS they choose, such as cleaning out the wildlife boxes, planting trees onsite, conducting weekly butterfly transects, managing the raised beds, growing vegetables that are used by the employees, and planting pollinators in the grounds to replace the traditional evergreens. Much of this work is undertaken with guidance from outside wildlife organisations, such as the Butterfly Conservation Trust and Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, who provide information and training for employees.

The Mental Health First Aiders promote engaging with NBS as a tool to support personal wellbeing. As part of this, they hold nature-based wellbeing workshops run by the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, which have been so popular amongst staff that they have become an annual event.

Working with nature was introduced to improve employee wellbeing, as well as contributing positively to local communities. As employees began to understand the association between protecting wildlife and engaging with nature with wellbeing and the local environment, they became more invested in NBS and boosting biodiversity in the local area.

Barriers to NBS implementation at Lubrizol Hazlewood site include:

The business is housed within an exstately home, and it is expensive to upgrade such an old building to be more environmentally friendly. Practical factors, such as the thickness of the walls, can prevent alterations that would be quick to implement in newer buildings.

Larger scale NBS projects that require changes to infrastructure are often not implemented due to cost. For example, Lubrizol, Hazelwood are keen to contribute to green energy generation by returning electricity, produced as a by-product by their regen dynamometers, back to the local energy grid. However, this is currently not possible as both the Lubrizol site and the district energy network require an expensive infrastructure upgrade to do this, and the financial benefit does not currently justify the outlay.

Striking a balance between NBS and local community needs

Lubrizol aims to strike a balance between making sure they are supporting the local parish and implementing NBS for wider ecological benefit. This means being considerate to the local community’s needs and respecting their rural location. For example, whilst the site would like to erect a wind turbine to generate greener energy, they have chosen not to do this because it may potentially upset the local residents.

NBS enablers

Enablers to NBS implementation at Lubrizol Hazlewood site include:

Engaging employees at various levels drives passion for saving nature. This passion often drives action and creates a culture of sustainability and NBS led practice.

Effective structural mechanisms to support formal resourcing of the NBS activities.

Sustained leadership commitment for NBSs and associated change initiatives.

Connecting the NBS volunteering to the wellbeing benefits provided important personal and professional justification for engaging with wildlife and nature initiatives.

Activities such as planting raised beds and growing vegetables in the site gardens were particularly successful, as they provided a chance for people to grow things who may not have the facility to do so at home.

Supporting local nature has a positive impact on day-to-day quality of life and sense of place for people who live locally.

Working with reputable intermediaries to design and undertake NBS.

Learning points about NBS implementation

  1. Whilst there are financial risks associated with implementing large scale NBS solutions, there are plenty of other, low risk activates that business of any size can implement. The examples of small scale NBS include: building log piles, creating small areas for wildlife like hanging boxes and planting a wider variety of plants in gardens spaces to increase biodiversity
  2. Multi-stakeholder collaboration helps to disseminate good practice and widen NBS implementation. For example, engaging in training workshops that host multiple organisations has helped learning and knowledge sharing
  3. Intermediaries, such as the Wildlife Trusts and community based nature restoration groups, are key facilitators for bringing together multiple stakeholders and helping them connect and implement NBS for change
  4. What matters most in the beginning is having passionate people who support NBS and are willing to consistently share its positive impact and importance with others. This can be through newsletters, education pieces or employee resource groups

“We've had different people on site to recommend and help with planting, to advise on what we should be doing in terms of a butterfly bank, the different trees that we should have on site, and just checking the general health and wellness.”

NBS implementation tips

  1. Start small; don’t go too big immediately. Make sure whatever you do is suitable and achievable for your own individual organisation. It must make sense for your own individual business based on size, location and resources
  2. Educate staff as to the importance of NBS and raising awareness of it's on the environment and their own personal wellbeing. This can help create staff buy-in
  3. Seek help from bridging organisations such as the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust, Butterfly Conservation and The Derwent Valley Trust
  4. Find a local site you can support. This will provide a focus for employees and act as a networking facilitator as well as an outlet of supporting nature. It helps if this is a place well known to most employees through their everyday lives, such as places they cycle or walk or visit with family. This means they can share the work they have done there with their own social and it instils a sense of pride
  5. NBS solutions relative to a business size: look for NBS solutions that are deigned flexibly for large and small businesses

“Having people in the roles who are open to ideas and also problem solvers has really helped.”