It’s easy to see why Dr. Bob Maughon’s Sabic team nominated him for the R&D 100 Innovator of the Year award. Maughon, former EVP and chief sustainability and technology officer at Sabic and all-around mensch, has accomplished more in five years at the company than many do in their entire careers. He is quick to acknowledge his team for helping achieve that goal, always creating a mutually beneficial environment for his team, himself, and sustainability.

“I was pleasantly surprised because I didn’t know I was nominated,” said Maughon. “I want to thank my team and some external partners for the recognition. This acknowledgment means a lot, especially because I usually focus on ensuring that our teams are nominated and have opportunities for recognition for our product development activities and team efforts. When I came into work and they surprised me with this, I was touched by it.

“I took this role at Sabic five years ago, integrating the technology and corporate sustainability organizations. We’ve been on a journey to accelerate delivering innovation impact that can enable a sustainable solution for our business. To be recognized personally, I’m a bit embarrassed, to be honest, because I think it’s much broader than my efforts —  it’s really the whole team’s effort. But it was meaningful, just because it’s a journey we’ve been on, we believe, to show that impact towards low-carbon and circular solutions for our products. To see that recognized has certainly meant a lot.”

In his role at Sabic, a global chemical manufacturing company based in Saudi Arabia, Maughon oversees an organization with 19 research centers worldwide and a talented team of over 1,700 people focused on driving process, product, and application innovation to bring sustainable material solutions and products to the marketplace. Before joining Sabic in 2019, he held the title of R&D VP for packaging, specialty plastics, and hydrocarbons at Dow.

Maughon has been in research roles his entire career, starting in 1996 at Dow. He worked in project leadership roles until 2017 when, as VP for research for the plastic and feedstock side of the company, Sabic entered the picture.

“Sabic offered me the opportunity to be chief technology officer and to lead R&D for the company, but also take the role of chief sustainability officer as well,” he said. “It was an exciting opportunity because a lot of the work I’ve been doing with my teams at Dow was developing more circular solutions for plastics, driving more carbon routes to our products, or delivering lower emission processes within our manufacturing operations. So, I was touching many of those types of sustainability areas through my innovation. However, being able to have responsibility for setting and driving sustainability priorities within a company, coupled with connecting the technology priorities with that, was an exciting opportunity. So, I took that role in 2019 with Sabic leading both functions.

“It has been an exciting journey about how we set clear sustainability priorities for the organizations and make sure that we’re delivering what’s needed within our assets, our footprints, and our value chain, but also making sure that our R&D priorities are aligned and connected. That is not just positioning stories on sustainability, but delivering real impactful projects that can move the needle.”

Maughon was also a key player in initiating the Low Carbon Emitting Technologies initiative at the World Economic Forum. This platform brings together global competitors in the petrochemical industry to expedite solutions for the low-carbon petrochemical sector. Sabic has taken the lead in waste processing to reduce cradle-to-grave CO₂ emissions and electrifying energy-intensive operations.

Some of Maughon’s accomplishments at Sabic include:

• Under his leadership, Sabic kicked off the Bluehero electrification efforts that included creating a cross-functional 25-person team in 2019 (for the first time in Sabic’s history) to provide materials, solutions, and expertise to enable the transition to a low-carbon future for transportation and other sectors, such as grid storage.
• Maughon initiated a collaboration with BASF and Linde to build and demonstrate a one-of-its-kind electric-cracking furnace.
• Sabic announced bold goals of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 and one million metric tons of recycled plastic annually by 2030.
• Maughon made the bold announcement at Sabic Investors’ Day in 2022 that the company will build three parallel first-adopter furnaces for cracking hydrocarbons through three different routes: cracker electrification, clean H₂ combustion, and CO₂ sequestration.
• The company’s total carbon emissions are projected to be 20% lower than the 2018 benchmark by 2030.
• Maughon led a reorganization of the technology and innovation centers across the globe to ensure Sabic can deliver on its aggressive sustainability goals.
• He made six venture capital investments related to low-carbon solutions, sustainable agriculture, circularity, and materials for energy transition.

From Maughon’s colleague, David H. West of Sabic Technology and Innovation: “I have been in the chemical industry for 41 years, the last 10 at Sabic, and the first 31 at Dow. I have seen nine CTOs in operation and sincerely believe that Bob Maughon has a unique combination of vision, technical ability, passion, and human touch for connecting with and inspiring people. Bob is a generational leader in transforming the chemical industry to reduce carbon consumption and create a circular economy for plastic, which reduces single-use plastic and plastic waste while providing the necessary material solutions for the future. His outstanding contributions to the field, as evidenced by his influential presentations to national science bodies, keynote lectures at global conferences, and panel participation at key events such as the R&D 100 Awards, demonstrate his expertise, leadership, and unwavering commitment to sustainability. Bob’s visionary leadership, combined with his ability to bridge the gap between academia and industry, has resulted in tangible advancements and impactful solutions for a more sustainable future. I wholeheartedly believe that Bob is the ideal candidate for this inaugural R&D Sustainability Innovators of the Year recognition.”