INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY -
Continuing this year’s wave of near-constant innovations aimed at responsible management of post-consumer plastics are new advancements from both the private and public sector.
BASF making products with chemically recycled plastics
BASF announced it has broken new ground in plastic waste recycling with its ChemCycling project. Chemical recycling provides an innovative way to reutilize currently unrecyclable plastic waste, such as mixed or uncleaned plastics. Depending on the region, such waste is usually sent to landfill or burned with energy recovery.
PRESS RELEASE -
HUNTSVILLE, AL, November 28, 2018 – BASF’s facility in Huntsville, Alabama received the Green Excellence Recognition in Waste Stewardship Award by Honda of America Manufacturing. The award recognizes BASF’s continuous and innovative efforts toward sustainability by significantly reducing production waste and achieving a Zero Waste to Landfill validation from UL. Less than 0.2 percent of waste goes to the landfill at the production facility.
PRESS RELEASE -
DuPont Sustainable Solutions (DSS) today announced the launch of a new global Innovation Management consulting practice that is specifically designed to enable B2B clients to bring more high value-added products and business models to market, profitably.
PRESS RELEASE -
Six innovative technologies from Dow, the world’s leading materials science company, were recognized with R&D 100 awards on November 16, 2018. The R&D 100 Awards, a signature program of R&D Magazine, is designed to identify and celebrate the top 100 revolutionary technologies introduced during the past year.
PRESS RELEASE -
BASF has started production of methanol on the basis of renewable raw materials according to the biomass balance approach. The product name is EU-REDcert-methanol. The company replaces fossil raw materials with second-generation renewable raw materials and uses waste as well as residual materials. As a result, BASF reduces emissions of climate-damaging greenhouse gases by at least 50 percent compared with conventionally produced methanol. In terms of its chemical and physical characteristics, biomass balanced methanol is identical to methanol produced from fossil resources. BASF markets the EU-REDcert-methanol to customers and also uses it itself as an intermediate for other biomass balanced products.
INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY -
This is the first in a series of posts by Dr. Gregory Unruh about geomimicry and its implications for sustainability.
MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
If you’ve been around the building products industry in the last five years, you’ve probably encountered conversations about transparency — around material health, chemical hazards, environmental impacts, you name it.
To be fair, if you were around the building products industry 10 years ago, no one was really talking about transparency (at least not like today). The buzzword of the day back then was recycled content. Before that, it was indoor air quality. And over time those attributes have become commonplace for most manufacturers; transparency is the next attribute to achieve.
PRESS RELEASE -
HOUSTON, TX – ExxonMobil Catalysts and Licensing LLC and BASF Corporation are conducting a full scale commercial demonstration of a new gas treating solvent at Imperial Oil’s Sarnia Refinery.
MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
From competitor and public policies to non-profit and investor pressures, there is more demand than ever to advance safer chemicals programs at your company. One proven way to help get on the right course is through benchmarking.
Benchmarking does not need to be a daunting task. In fact, there are tools available to help companies evaluate and compare their safer chemicals performance to standardized criteria. This process can help foster safer chemicals management by driving program changes based on industry best practices and successful management techniques.
PRESS RELEASE -
The Philadelphia Eagles are pleased to announce that Braskem (B3: BRKM3, BRKM5, and BRKM6;NYSE : BAK ; LATIBEX: XBRK), the world's leading biopolymer producer and the largest polypropylene producer in the Americas, will join the organization as a partner in recycling. Braskem enters into a nine-year sustainability-focused partnership with the Eagles, building on the team's long-standing commitment to environmental and community development programs.
Bottle caps being recycled at R.J Evercrest Polymers, Inc.
PRESS RELEASE -
Eastman has again received Cradle to Cradle Certified™ (C2C) Bronze recognition and, for the first time, has been awarded the Platinum-level Material Health Certificate through December 2019. The certification applies to eight of Eastman’s polymer lines, including Cadence, Eastar, Ecdel, Embrace, Neostar, Provista, Spectar, and Tritan. This is the first time that Eastman products have achieved the highest possible rating for Material Health and the first time that Eastman Tritan™ copolyester has been included in the certification.
PRESS RELEASE -
DowDuPont™ (NYSE: DWDP) announced today that it was named a constituent of the FTSE4Good Index Series. FTSE4Good was created by the global index provider, FTSE Russell, and is designed to measure the performance of companies demonstrating strong Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) practices. The FTSE4Good indices are used by a wide variety of market participants to create and assess responsible investment funds and other products.
INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY -
The Kubota tractor parked out front is the first tip-off that Michael Crooke is not your typical executive. While other startup founders might sport a Tesla, Crooke’s home office in Ojai is a far cry from Silicon Valley. Step over the welcome mat with the Pearl Izumi mark, look up at the Patagonia surfboard in the rafters, and you realize this little converted garden shed is like a history lesson in Crooke’s path from Navy SEAL to being a leading figure in sustainable business.
ORGANIZATIONAL GOVERNANCE -
60 members of the Partnership for Sustainable Textiles have revealed concrete action plans to ensure humane working conditions, greater environmental protection and fair wages in their own companies and in their suppliers’ production facilities. The Partnership — a multi-stakeholder coalition made up of companies, associations, NGOs, trade unions, standards organisations and the Federal German Government, formed in 2014 with the aim of making improvements along the entire textile supply chain —considers this a major step forward, as it means that many members agree on revealing even sensible information for the first time.
PRESS RELEASE -
The Dow Chemical Company (Dow) and WE, an organization that makes doing good, doable, are excited to announce the winners of the inaugural WE Are Innovators campaign, challenging youth to tackle today’s daunting issues of food waste, the environment and more by applying chemistry, science and innovation.
MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
For the first time, Greenpeace has released a report on the progress of its Detox campaign to eliminate hazardous chemicals from clothing production by 2020. The 80 companies who have signed on over the first seven years of the initiative represent a combined 15 percent of global clothing production — and all of them are “making good progress” to cut 11 priority chemicals and improve transparency.
PRESS RELEASE -
“Quantified Sustainabile Benefits” – the sustainability campaign from Master Builders Solutions® convinced the juries of both the Deutscher Preis für Onlinekommunikation (German Award for Online Communications) and the Best of Content Marketing Award (BCM), Europe’s biggest content marketing competition. The campaign has won a Gold Award at Deutscher Preis für Onlinekommunikation 2018 in the category “Microsite” as well as three Silver Awards at Best of Content Marketing Award 2018 in the categories “B2B Campaign”, “B2B Crossmedia”, and “B2B Microsite”.
PRESS RELEASE -
Unique biotechnological procedure for using gaseous waste as a source for raw materials
Technology with potential for applications in the chemical industry
BASF Venture Capital GmbH is to invest in LanzaTech, a biotech company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Using special microbes, LanzaTech has developed a technology for gas fermentation that first enables ethanol to be produced from residual gases containing carbon monoxide and hydrogen. By re-using waste streams instead of incinerating them, industrial companies can reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
PRESS RELEASE -
The 100% recyclable biopolymer will be used in the packaging of the new line of loaves with germinated grains that follow the Clean Label movement
Braskem, the largest producer of biopolymers in the world, is now supplying the Green Plastic I'm greenTM to Nutrella, a brand of special loaves from the Bimbo Group - a world leader in bread making. The raw material is used in the Nutrella Viva loaves line, produced with germinated grain flours and following the Clean Label concept.