AbstractEnvironmentally more acceptable processes in the chemical industrys.From its very beginning the chemical industry has always made every effort to cut the consumption of raw materials and energy in its processes and to diminish the release of by‐products and waste streams into the environment. These efforts at technically improving the various processes are presently being intensified by economical and political pressures of rising raw material costs and the rising costs of releasing harmful substances into the environment. Ways of reducing these influences on the environment by chemical processes and of improving process economics will be reported from the experience of Bayer AG. The examples show that it is possible to combine the indispensable with the practicable, and that in this way the burden on the environment can be kept as low as may be consistent with the image of the industrial societ