EuroWire May 2024

Corporate News

Orion maintains gold sustainability rating

There are only a handful of permanent ocean-floor sensors in place globally, since installing and maintaining them is challenging and prohibitively expensive. By applying NPL’s technique to existing seafloor cables, thousands of sensors could be implemented. The sensing technique does not require any new hardware or infrastructure to be installed, instead using the optical fibre itself as the environmental sensor. The technique has the potential to provide a valuable early warning system to safeguard coastal populations in the event of a tsunami. It also offers a solution to fill the gap in data in ocean monitoring, with an impact in several scientific areas, including seismology and oceanography. Future projects could develop the concept into a worldwide monitoring network, giving earlier and more accurate detection of earthquakes and tsunamis, as well as advancing the understanding of ocean floor geology and climate change through the long term monitoring of seafloor temperature changes. National Physical Laboratory www.npl.co.uk Measurement Standards Laboratory of New Zealand www.measurement.govt.nz more sustainable company,” said Orion CEO Corning Painter. Over the last year, Orion has achieved several sustainability milestones, including the completion of a series of projects (with a total cost of more than $300mn) that involved installing technology that substantially reduces emissions at the company’s US plants. Orion recently received €6.4mn in fund ing from the German government and the European Union to further develop technology to improve the production of carbon black using circular feedstocks. Orion SA https://orioncarbons.com

Scientists from the UK’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and the Measurement Standards Laboratory (MSL) in New Zealand are to carry out the first optical interferometry-based earthquake sens- ing tests in the Pacific Ocean. By performing ultra-sensitive optical measurements, scientists from the two laboratories will “convert” a seafloor cable extending offshore from New Zealand into an array of sensors for earthquakes and ocean currents. These tests will lay the foundation for investigating the potential use of existing seafloor cables as detectors for tsunami early warning systems. The technique was first used by NPL in 2021, and derived from methods used for quantum science. Existing optical fibre infrastructure is used to gather continuous, real-time environmental data from the seabed. NPL previously demonstrated the technique in the Atlantic Ocean on a 5,860km-long intercontinental submarine optical fibre link between the UK and Canada. The Pacific Ocean is a highly seismically active area, providing an ideal test bed for advancing the technology and demonstrating its full potential. NPL and the MSL will test the technique later this year on a section of the 3,876km-long Southern Cross NEXT cable on the floor of the Tasman Sea between New Zealand and Australia. Speciality chemicals company Orion SA has maintained a Gold medal rating from EcoVadis, and ranks among the top two per cent of the companies assessed by the organisation in a wide range of sustainability areas. Orion improved its score from the previous year by making gains in the areas of sustainable procurement and ethics, according to EcoVadis, a provider of business sustainability ratings. “The annual progress Orion is making in the EcoVadis assessments is just another example of how committed we are to being a trusted partner for all our stakeholders and becoming an even

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May 2024