UK Chemicals Emissions Fall 60% as 25 Facilities Close, With Over 90% of Cuts From Closures

At least 25 chemicals facilities in the UK closed between 2021 and 2025, according to GB News reporting. More than 90 percent of the 60 percent drop in sector emissions over that period resulted from those closures rather than efficiency improvements. Fifteen of the closed firms cited energy costs, policy costs, carbon costs or competitiveness as reasons for shutting down.

The UK chemicals sector directly employs more than 150,000 people and supports half a million jobs in the wider economy, with annual exports worth £61 billion. Robinson Brothers, a family-run company founded in 1869 on a 14-acre site in West Bromwich, reduced its own workforce from 250 to 150 employees after some products moved abroad because of high energy prices.

Managing director Adrian Hanrahan said energy costs at the firm quadrupled over five years even as energy required per kilo of product fell 40 percent.

Around 80 percent of Robinson Brothers’ output is exported. The company has been accepted onto the British Industry Supercharger scheme and will be exempt from a number of green levies on electricity bills from next year. Hanrahan said the firm switched production to hand sanitiser during Covid and distributed it free to local hospitals and schools.

Up until 2023 the company manufactured chemicals for pesticides and automotive applications; those lines are no longer produced in the UK and must be re-imported. ” He described the £350 million critical chemicals resilience fund announced last month as “a very welcome first step” but said more action was needed.

” The critical chemicals resilience fund is aimed at supporting strategically important producers and sites.

Elliott said chemical businesses underpinning critical national infrastructure stand to gain from the fund but remain dependent on raw material suppliers struggling with energy, carbon reduction and regulatory costs. Hanrahan said he supports the aims of Net Zero but believes the required pace of change is too rapid.