After Nova Chemicals shut down a production line at its Monaca, Beaver County, plant last year, the company saw an opportunity to realign the facility with a goal of making it sustainable for the long term.

For Nova, achieving sustainability involved going beyond green practices such as recycling at the plant, which produces plastic resins used in packaging, insulation, disposable cups and food utensils.

"We are making it sustainable from an economic standpoint," said Robert Snyder, Nova's vice president, performance styrenics, who is based at the Monaca plant. "It's not just eliminating head count. We are restructuring and getting the site to the appropriate capacity for our markets."

Nova in June announced the Monaca plant would stop making Dylark -- a resin used in automobile interiors -- resulting in the loss of 35 to 40 jobs. About 220 employees remain.

Since the decision to shut down the Dylark line, Nova has invested several million dollars in the plant. Mr. Snyder said the goal is to make it more energy efficient, improve its logistics for shipping "and make sure the products we make are products we want long-term."

Nova and other local chemical companies have been developing sustainable products for years to meet the demands of customers and markets. But the recent economic downturn has prompted them to take a closer look at their own corporate practices and assess how to run their businesses more sustainably.

"We're constantly looking at how we are utilizing raw materials and energy at our plants ... to reduce the amount of energy we use," said Debra van Holst, global business director, polyethylene for Nova, which has corporate offices in Moon but most of its operations in Canada. The company last year was acquired last year by Abu Dhabi-based International Petroleum Investment Co.

"It goes back to the roots of Nova: The company was created to add value to the natural gas stream floating out of Alberta, Canada," she said.

At its plant in Leetsdale, where a subsidiary, Syntheon, makes steel framed panels used in residential and commercial construction, all the steel and polystyrene used in production is recycled.

The polystyrene is burned, "and we recapture the heat so there are no emissions," said Tony Torres, Nova's vice president, ventures and building and construction.

"It's pretty self-contained. That's the model for what chemical companies are trying to achieve."

At other large chemical businesses, including PPG Industries, Koppers Inc. and Bayer Corp., officials who oversee sustainability efforts said many of their initiatives have been in place for years though they might not have been called "sustainable" until that term became a business buzzword.

Koppers, for instance, took a widely-recognized global standard for environmental management, ISO 140001, and broadened it to include plant safety, emergency preparedness and community interaction, said Leslie Hyde, vice president of safety and environmental affairs.

"It's a continuous improvement concept. We can never rest on our laurels," she said.

Koppers has established community advisory panels in towns where it has facilities and encourages residents to meet with plant managers several times a year "for an open and candid forum," said Ms. Hyde. "They can bring their concerns to management and we report back to them."

Representatives from all Koppers facilities gather annually to report to top management about their activities on environmental issues and sustainability projects, she said. "It gives them accountability to the chief executive and a chance to share their ideas."

At PPG, "We always operated with sustainability in mind but kicked it up a notch several years ago," said Victoria Holt, senior vice president, glass and fiber glass, and co-chair of the company's energy security and climate change subcommittee.

Each of the company's business units has established target levels to reduce energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions, said Ms. Holt. The company publishes a quarterly summary of energy usage and emissions "to make visible to employees the impact."

Among the ways the company tries to reduce energy costs is by asking employees to use Internet and phones for meetings instead of air travel. "As we globalize, there's a migration to tools like Web conferencing capabilities and video conferencing," said Charles Kahle, chief technology officer and vice president, coatings research and development at PPG.

Of PPG's $15.8 billion in global revenues in 2008, nearly $4 billion were "green sales" of products that reduced energy consumption or greenhouse gases, such as fiber glass for wind turbines, glass that harvests solar power and paints with low levels of VOCs (volatile organic compounds), said Mr. Kahle.

"Customers are pulling us in ahead of compliance," he said. "The marketplace demands it. ... This has become a more significant part of our business than in the past."

Bayer Corp. defines sustainability as generating business value while meeting social, environmental and economic responsibilities, said Valerie Patrick, sustainability coordinator for the company's North American region based in Robinson.

Like other major chemical producers, Bayer is monitoring its own greenhouse gas emissions at manufacturing facilities and trying to come up with ways to cut energy consumption.

It has packaged its "climate check" assessment system to use within the corporation as well as a tool to market to other companies.

At its headquarters campus in Robinson, Bayer shifted the cleaning staff from night to day to take advantage of natural light; and set its printers to automatically print on two-sides and only in black and white unless color or a single-sided copy is requested.

"They may seem like small things ... but we are using 250,000 fewer sheets of paper a month" as a result of the printing initiative, said Ms. Patrick.

Bayer MaterialScience, a division of Bayer Corp., distributed six-pack containers of energy-saving fluorescent compact light bulbs to its employees to spread the message that the business wants to be more sustainable.

Bayer MaterialScience doesn't make any of the products contained in the light bulbs, "But we wanted to catalyze people to use them at home," said Robert Kumpf, chief administrative officer and executive sponsor for the division's sustainability community council.

By switching the cleaning crew to day hours, Bayer was able to not only save on energy costs but convey to employees the significance of the sustainability efforts.

"From a leadership position, because these [maintenance people] are walking around doing this work in the day, it's an opportunity for employees to interact with them and say, 'How can I do more for recycling?' It's creating an awareness of how much waste you generate when a person comes in and takes your wastebasket."

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