Covestro Expands Its Circular Economy Portfolio to All Major Regions
- Covestro’s third-largest site, Baytown, Texas, USA receives ISCC PLUS certification
- Focus on mass balanced products using recycled and bio-attributed raw materials
- Already hundreds of products made from alternative raw materials in the circular “CQ” portfolio
With the ISCC (International Sustainability and Carbon Certification) PLUS certification of its production site in Baytown, Texas (USA), Covestro is significantly expanding the reach of its product portfolio for the circular economy. The Baytown site is the company’s largest operating facility in North and South America and its third-largest production site worldwide. This most recent achievement is significant, with all of Covestro’s major sites now certified by the internationally recognized ISCC PLUS standard. In addition to Baytown, certified sites include Leverkusen, Dormagen, Krefeld-Uerdingen (Germany), Shanghai (China), Changhua (Taiwan), Map Ta Phut (Thailand), Antwerp (Belgium) and Filago (Italy).
“Thanks to this new milestone, Covestro will soon be able to serve even more customers around the world with an easily accessible, more sustainable product portfolio,” says Sucheta Govil, Chief Commercial Officer of Covestro. “Customers in North America can now reduce their carbon footprint and Scope 3 emissions with drop-in, mass-balanced materials derived from recycled and bio-attributed products.”
Covestro is the first manufacturer of polyurethane and polycarbonate raw materials to receive this certification in the United States. The certification is an important milestone for both Covestro and the industries it serves, including the automotive, construction, comfort, electronics and appliance industries, which will now have access to ISCC PLUS-certified products made from more sustainable raw materials in North America.
To underscore how the products support both the company’s vision to become fully circular and its customers’ journey to greater sustainability, Covestro has introduced a specially branded product line with the suffix “CQ”. CQ, which stands for ʺCircular Intelligenceʺ, is a portfolio of products with attribution of at least 25 percent alternative raw materials derived from biomass or recycled plastics.
Covestro is also introducing the name Evocycle CQ for all evolutionary recycling processes. The first project of this kind is called Evocycle CQ Mattress and denotes an innovative chemical recycling technology for polyurethane mattress foam. Covestro currently has more than hundreds of CQ products and is continuously expanding this portfolio.
The ISCC PLUS certified products produced at Covestro’s Baytown facilities will include:
- Methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (MDI) – used primarily in the production of rigid polyurethane foam for efficient insulation of refrigeration equipment and buildings
- Toluene diisocyanate (TDI) – used in the production of flexible foam for the automotive and furniture industries
- Makrolon RE – polycarbonate, a high-grade plastic used in the automotive, electronics and medical industries, among others
- Hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI), isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI), Desmodur W and Desmodur Z – used in various coatings and adhesive applications
Covestro expects to begin supplying select ISCC PLUS-certified products from its Baytown facility in the second half of 2023.
The products will be produced using a mass-balance approach. Sustainable raw materials will be accounted for throughout both the value chain and production process, allowing for an accurate attribution in the end products. The existing production infrastructure will be utilized while reducing the carbon footprint of the final products.
ISCC is an internationally recognized sustainability certification for biomass and bioenergy. The standard applies to all stages of the value chain and is recognized worldwide.
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