Each year, exceptional performances in environmental, health, safety and security by companies in Ohio’s chemical industry are recognized by the OCTC through the council’s Awards for Excellence. These companies have demonstrated dedication to a method of continuous improvement that keeps our communities and state a safer and healthier place to live and work.
2026 Awards for Excellence Winners
Ohio Chemistry Technology Council (OCTC) is proud to announce this year's Awards for Excellence! We are honored to recognize exceptional performances in environmental, health, safety and security by companies in Ohio’s chemical industry.
Eagle Award Winner
OCTC is excited to announce this year's Eagle Award for Excellence in Environmental, Health, Safety & Security Performance. Our panel of judges selected this program for standing out in scope, implementation, impact and sustainability.
Cenovus Energy - Lima & Toledo Ohio
Cenovus strengthened Control of Work practices across refineries. The new program met Cenovus Operations Integrity Management System requirements, harmonized practices across U.S. and Canadian Downstream sites, and elevated the rigor and consistency for managing hazardous work and evaluating risk. Improvements include better understanding of work and risks involved; more accurate and consistent isolation planning; improved field audits; streamlined risk evaluation; and stronger collaboration.
Award for Excellence Winners
This year, 22 member companies have been selected to receive an award for excellence in Environmental, Health, Safety or Security Performance. Each facility of a member company submitted a nomination on its own behalf which was then submitted and reviewed by our distinguished panel of judges.
In addition to demonstrating commitment and achievement in protecting people and the environment, a nomination must focus on a program or activity the company believes represents excellence in environmental, health, safety or security performance. Click on each site to read a brief description of their achievements!
Health and Safety
Alterra replaced single use lined cubic yard boxes with a compliant roll off container system for the facility’s primary hazardous waste stream, reducing individual containers handled by 96%, decreasing employee handling events by 33%, and reclaiming approximately 1,600 sq ft of staging space. The upgrade improved transportation safety, reduced disposal costs by 34%, and enabled the full transition of this waste stream’s disposal from incineration to alternative engineered fuel reclamation.
Environmental
The Ashland-Atlas St., Columbus, OH facility submission for this year, showing our commitment to safety, is armored sight glasses for process equipment. These new sight glasses reduce the potential risk of a material release and employee exposure thus making it a safer workplace. This is just one example of Ashland’s commitment to zero incident culture.
Environmental
Ashland Lima plant has been using a computer program that takes past and current process data to model performance versus controlled and uncontrolled inputs. The program gives advice as to what variables to change in order to optimize performance with the objective of minimizing total Green House Gas (GHG) emissions while maintaining a targeted production rate.
Health and Safety
The BASF Elyria ERT greatly improved emergency response readiness through several initiatives including in-house training, membership expansion, strengthened team identity, and updated infrastructure. These improvements created cost savings of $68K annually and boosted membership by over 70%. Major equipment and facility upgrades also enhanced response capability and times. These improvements significantly increased the site’s overall emergency preparedness and sustainability.
Environmental
Through targeted reclamation initiatives across multiple onsite waste streams, the BASF Elyria site significantly reduced waste generation, achieving over $1.2M in avoided disposal costs. These efforts reduced treatment and transportation impacts, advanced environmental stewardship, and reinforced environmental excellence by integrating sustainable, resource-efficient practices into site operations.
Health and Safety
BASF Corporation is a worldwide, leading chemical company that is committed to the health and safety of its employees and contractors. Due to the nature of the activities conducted at the BASF chemical facilities, the Corporation proactively assesses hazards and implements sustainable solutions to ensure a safe work environment. In 2025, the BASF Whitehouse, OH, facility continued its campaign focused on the support of a safe and healthy workplace.
Health and Safety
Catexel Nease is a batch manufacturer of specialty chemicals and maintains ISO 45001 certification, reflecting our strong commitment to safety, environmental stewardship, and operational excellence. To further elevate our safety culture, we launched the SafeLead program an organization-wide initiative that strengthens safety performance, communication, and accountability by emphasizing the critical role of human factors in how we work and live.
Health and Safety
Cenovus strengthened Control of Work practices across refineries. The new program met Cenovus Operations Integrity Management System requirements, harmonized practices across U.S. and Canadian Downstream sites, and elevated the rigor and consistency for managing hazardous work and evaluating risk. Improvements include better understanding of work and risks involved; more accurate and consistent isolation planning; improved field audits; streamlined risk evaluation; and stronger collaboration.
Health and Safety
Chemtrade’s Cairo, OH facility has surpassed eight years without an employee OSHA recordable injury and successfully started up UP4, its new ultra‑pure sulfuric acid plant. In 2025 the site launched a Third‑Party Carrier Engagement Program, improving collaboration, reducing unsafe actions by over 10%, and sustaining zero loss‑of‑containment events. In 2026 the model will expand to mechanical contractors to support a safe major turnaround.
Environmental
The Covestro site in Hebron / Newark, Ohio has implemented a comprehensive wastewater treatment enhancement project that exemplifies Covestro's commitment to environmental stewardship and circular economy principles. This innovative initiative eliminates environmental discharge of plastic resin and significantly reduces the discharge of emerging contaminants to the environment, including to the Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTW).
Health and Safety
The DayGlo Avon facility has embraced our commitment to provide a safe, healthy and secure work environment by adhering to all safety policies and embracing our near miss unsafe condition notification program. As a result of the NMUC, we installed a mezzanine system around our Henschel mixers to provide an ergonomically safe way for our operators to add materials to the mixers, The facility did not have a recordable incident in 2025 and celebrated 9 years without a lost time accident.
Health and Safety
The DayGlo Twinsburg facility has embraced our commitment to provide a safe, healthy and secure work environment by adhering to all safety policies and embracing our near miss unsafe condition notification program. As a result of the NMUC, we installed a mezzanine system around our Henschel mixers to provide an ergonomically safe way for our operators to add materials to the mixers, The facility did not have a recordable incident in 2025 and celebrated 9 years without a lost time accident.
Environmental
GFS Chemicals’ sustainability goal focused on reducing energy consumption and modernizing facility infrastructure to improve efficiency and lower environmental impact. The project began with replacing lighting with high efficiency LED panels and upgrading heating units and boilers to more efficient models. Results are reduction in electrical and fuel demand across all operations. Effort continues through 2026 with the installation of new air handlers and additional equipment replacement.
Health and Safety
INEOS Lima Chemicals maintained its vision of no incidents, no harm to people, and no environmental damage in 2025. Guided by the Bradley Curve and a culture of being Our Brother’s Keeper, site leadership led two safety training days attended by all employees, covering safety, procedures, process safety, incident learnings, and emergency response. Additional Incident Commander and HAZWOPER training strengthened readiness. The site’s last lost time accident was in 2016, with 4,884,868 hours worked.
Security
Jones‑Hamilton’s Walbridge facility advanced its EHS efforts in 2025 with $125,000 in security and fire‑prevention upgrades, including encrypted access cards, 17 new cameras, and thermal imaging for early fire detection. Quarterly off‑site meetings with manufacturing staff improved training, communication, and workplace safety while supporting record production.
Health and Safety
Key Resin Company, a division of Euclid Chemical has transformed its safety management approach and workforce culture through a strategic focus on it's "One Key, One Team" philosophy, improving employee empowerment and engagement to reduce workplace hazards and sustain a culture of workplace safety. This effort, led by plant manager David Elliot has resulted in Key Resin achieving a zero injury/illness record for 2025, a significant improvement off of TRIRs of 7.57 in 2024 and 5.81 in 2023.
Health and Safety
In 2025, the Kraton Belpre Plant strengthened fire protection reliability through a structured program aligned with NFPA 25, the Ohio State Fire Code, and OSHA requirements. Addressing 60+ year old infrastructure, the team implemented a comprehensive, prioritized assessment, engineered upgrades, ITM tracking, impairment controls, and capital improvements. The result: improved compliance, reduced system risk, and sustained protection of employees, the community, and critical assets.
Health and Safety
In 2025, McGean strengthened its commitment to chemical handling safety by installing a foam suppression sprinkler system throughout its flammable materials department. This engineered control adds a critical layer of protection beyond regulatory requirements, rapidly suppressing potential fires to protect employees, assets, and operations. The project reflects McGean’s comprehensive approach to risk management and ongoing investment in continuous safety improvement.
Environmental
In 2024, 100 percent of off-specification RTV silicone and silicone fluid waste generated at Novagard Solutions, Inc. was sent to landfill. In 2025, Novagard launched a silicone recycling partnership that diverted approximately 101,000 pounds of silicone scrap, equivalent to about 5,000 cubic yards, from landfill disposal, resulting in a 43 percent reduction in silicone waste to landfill. In 2026, Novagard plans to evaluate the use of recycled silicone fluid as a raw material to support a circular economy approach to silicone manufacturing.
Environmental
Nutrien Lima Nitrogen developed an initiative to replace 15 single seal pumps in ammonia service with pumps that have dual mechanical seals. In the event of a catastrophic seal failure, dual seals prevent an immediate release of ammonia to the environment. The condition of the mechanical seal is monitored in a dual seal configuration which allows slow developing seal failures to be identified early and repaired prior to an environmental release.
Environmental
In 2025, the Cleveland PPG plant was able to find a third-party vendor that could take various paint waste streams (Solvent and Waterbase streams) for reuse as opposed to our typical incineration process. The facility was able to send for reuse 2,109,641 lbs. of paint materials. The result was a 14% reduction in the amount of waste produced in 2025 for the site.
Health and Safety
The PPG Cleveland site implemented a Walk The Line (WTL) spill reduction tool that resulted in the reduction of 38% of site’s internal PPG category spills. The program includes process drawings with a checklist for reducing errors. Operators are required to perform the WTL checklists prior to the transfer of materials, when switching operations, and when leaving or coming back from a break. Supervisors and support staff perform daily audits of the WTL checklists and data is reviewed daily to keep the process sustainable.
Environmental
At Syensqo’s Marietta facility, environmental stewardship and operational reliability is mutually strengthened with a robust LDAR program that exceeds Ohio EPA and USEPA Hazardous Air Pollutant (HAP) standards and investment in advanced emissions reduction equipment. These site LDAR and pressure relief device program upgrades resulted in a 13.6% HAPs emission reduction from 2024 to 2025, reflecting our commitment to continuous improvement and compliance.
Health and Safety
At Univar, a younger workforce and retirement of veteran workers challenged our ability to maintain a highly skilled workforce. The Univar Evandale plant implemented Competency Based Training (CBT) to help employees learn at their own pace and focus more on mastery of knowledge and skills. CBT allowed for better coaching of employees and more frequent recognition of great safety behaviors. Evandale has been injury-free since.