Ottawa recently increased the number of exemptions granted to chemical companies for selling insulation products that do not meet Canadian environmental standards. Ten companies have held permits since December that allow them to emit more greenhouse gases (GHGs).
As of January 2021, Canadian standards prohibit insulation manufacturers from producing foam plastics containing hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). This gas has a warming power up to thousands of times greater than that of CO2. It is used, among other things, for the production of blowing agent for insulation.
The duty revealed last April that three chemical giants — DuPont, Kingspan Insulation and Owens Corning — had obtained exemptions from the Canadian government to sell insulation whose HFC emissions are, in some cases, up to five times higher than the standard allowed in the country.
In December, the Government of Canada extended until next July the exemptions granted to two of them: Kingspan Insulation and Owen Corning. DuPont already has a permit to sell until 2023 products that do not meet Canadian standards.
Moreover, the government has also granted similar permits to seven other companies. For example, the Ontario company Tycorra Fleet Solutions can currently import refrigerated trailers whose foam insulation has a global warming potential (GRP) 9.5 higher than the Canadian standard.
The Quebec company Genyk is also part of the number. Until March, it can sell an insulating foam containing HFCs whose GWP exceeds the Canadian standard by 6.8. Yves Rondeau, founding president of Genyk, justifies the exemption by a stock shortage of hydrofluoroolefin (HFO), a less harmful chemical compound which must replace HFC as a blowing agent.
Six months before the new standards, the 1er January 2021, Genyk was able to produce its insulation with HFOs rather than HFCs, says Mr. Rondeau: “But, from January, we observed supply delays. It all got wrapped up [cet été avec la crise dans le transport maritime] and, at one point, we didn’t have enough HFO to meet our needs. The situation is not obvious. »
Three companies hold the intellectual properties to produce HFO and therefore dominate this market. These are the Americans Honeywell and Chemours as well as the French Arkema.
“I do not believe that a situation of stock shortage of blowing agent justifies the fact that we must grant them a permit”, indicates for his part Jean-François Côté, director Scientific Affairs and Standardization at Soprema, a French multinational. which has a plant in Sherbrooke.
It lowered the global warming potential (GWP) of its insulating product to “less than 1”. Canadian standards prohibit the GWP to exceed 150, i.e. emissions 150 times greater than that of CO2 for the same mass.
“We know that companies [Owens Corning et DuPont] are able to do it,” adds Mr. Côté. These two chemical giants already manufacture and sell HFC-free products in nine American states that have banned or regulated this category of gas in recent years.
The privileges of the Canadian government, believes Mr. Côté, have an impact on competition, but also on the environment: “My estimate is that if the federal government did not issue these permits, we would reduce emissions of ‘approximately one million tonnes of CO equivalent2 per year. »
Last year, Soprema began proceedings with the Federal Court to invalidate the permissions granted to Kingspan Insulation, Owens Corning and DuPont. It asks that the Ministry of the Environment of Canada “respect its own regulations and ensure that the HFC reduction objectives are met” so that the country achieves its GHG reduction objectives.
“We had the opportunity to apply for a permit [une exemption], but we refused to do so. We chose to stay with a solution that meets the standards,” says Jean-François Côté of Soprema. Canada signed the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol in 2017, which aims to reduce the use of HFCs on the planet by 85% by 2050.