With the ISCC (International Sustainability and Carbon Certification) PLUS certification of its production site in Baytown, Texas (USA), Covestro is 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. All of Covestro's major sites are now certified by the 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 said to be the first manufacturer of polyurethane and polycarbonate raw materials to receive this certification in the United States.
Covestro has introduced a branded product line with the suffix "CQ." CQ, which stands for “Circular Intelligence,” 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, currently focused in Europe, is called Evocycle CQ Mattress and denotes an innovative chemical recycling technology for polyurethane mattress foam. The company currently has 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
- Toluene diisocyanate (TDI) – used in the production of flexible foam
- Makrolon RE – polycarbonate, a high-grade plastic used in the medical industry
- 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 to the end products. The existing production infrastructure will be utilised while reducing the carbon footprint of the final products.
ISCC is an internationally recognised sustainability certification for biomass and bioenergy. The standard applies to all stages of the value chain and is recognised worldwide.