T he global chemical industry provides a multitude of ma- terials and products that are essential for our modern life. Meanwhile, it has grown into a major industrial sector in terms of resource consumption and environmental impacts over the past decades. When counting both feedstock and energy consumption, estimates from the early 2010s suggest that the chemical industry contributed 10 % of global endenergy demand (or 30 % of total global industrial end-energy demand) and 7 % of global greenhouse gas emissions (5.5 % when only counting CO2 emissions) . As the size of the global chemical industry is expected to nearly double by 2030 in comparison to 2020 , a timely transition to a sustain-able one is indispensable. This is demonstrated by the latest European Union (EU) Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability aiming to boost innovation for safe and sustainable chemicals .