BASF’s Monomers Division Hits Sustainability Milestone

One year after BASF’s Monomers division announced its sustainability roadmap, it is now celebrating the successful certification of production sites in all regions.

With its MDI production site in Geismar, Louisiana, USA, joining the ranks of ISCC PLUS and REDcert-certified locations, BASF can now offer its customers regionally produced ISCC PLUS and/or REDcert certified isocyanates and polyamides all over the world.

“Our successes in the last year have shown how serious we are about driving the sustainable transformation of the Monomers division and the various customer industries we are serving  ̶ we are working constantly to improve our portfolio which is also reflected by our products constantly meeting the high standards of our international certifiers,” said Monomers president Dr. Ramkumar Dhruva.

Last January, BASF’s Monomers division committed itself to developing a circular option in every major product line by 2025. Now, only one year later, the division continues to deliver on that promise. As of February 2024, approximately 70% of the portfolio of isocyanates, polyamides, glues and resins, precursors and inorganics products are available in chemically recycled (Ccycled®) or biomass-balanced variants (BMB), as LowPCF products or even ZERO variants (Zero Emissions, Renewable Origin).

In total, the division now offers 345 certified sustainable product alternatives to its various customer industries, which range from food packaging, textiles, automotive or construction to wood binders and many others.

Besides offering more sustainable product variants, BASF’s Monomers division continues to invent new solutions like its polyol recycling. Further, the division develops new proprietary technologies that drive the sustainable transformation of the various industries it serves.

With the newest addition to its portfolio, loopamid®, the Monomers division has developed a solution to improve circularity in the fashion industry and recycle polyamide 6-based textile waste. With this cutting-edge technology, used fibers and materials can be recycled into new yarn over multiple cycles while retaining the material characteristics of conventional virgin polyamide. More information about this breakthrough technology is available here.

Besides the significant additions to its product portfolio, BASF’s Monomers division has also successfully implemented many measures for its production sites in all regions that further reduce carbon emissions. With these CO2 mitigation measures Monomers contributes significantly to BASF’s ambitious sustainability target of reaching net-zero carbon emissions by the year 2050.

Utilizing the benefits of BASF’s global Verbund network, several high-impact measures resulted in substantial CO2 reductions. A prime example are improved heat recovery measures at the site of Shanghai BASF Polyurethane Co. Ltd. (SBPC), which are expected to reduce CO2 emissions by up to 34,000 tons every year.