TAGS: Biobased Solutions
Neste and Covestro are starting a strategic cooperation in Europe to promote the use of sustainable raw materials in plastics production. Covestro will be supplied with material from renewable sources to replace a significant portion of the fossil raw materials in the manufacture of polycarbonates.
This type of a high-performance plastic is used, for example, in car headlamps, LED lights, electronic and medical devices and automotive glazing.
Neste’s Renewable Hydrocarbons as Raw Materials
Over the short term, the collaboration aims to replace several thousand tons of fossil raw materials in the production of polycarbonates with raw materials produced with Neste’s renewable hydrocarbons. Neste produces its renewable hydrocarbons entirely from renewable raw materials, such as waste and residue oils and fats.
Due to a drop-in replacement to commonly-used fossil feedstock in the polymers production, Neste’s product is suitable for existing production infrastructures and enables customers like Covestro to produce more sustainable products with consistently high quality using their existing processes.
Promoting Use of Sustainable Materials
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The polymers and chemicals industries will play a major role in the circular economy and fight against climate change. That is why Neste is committed to supporting the industry forerunners like Covestro on their sustainability journey,” says Neste’s president and CEO Peter Vanacker.
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Our collaboration enables Covestro to play a significant role in providing climate-friendlier raw materials to leading brands and help them reach their materials-related sustainability targets. With Covestro, the positive impact provided by Neste’s renewable hydrocarbons is expanded beyond the field of polyolefins, showing the product’s value and compatibility with more complex value chains,” added Vanacker.
With this collaboration Covestro is emphasizing its intention to make its production more sustainable and to drive forward the change to a circular economy. Using alternative raw materials more intensively is an important basis for this.
Covestro is fully committed to working with many partners to manage the transition to a circular economy, the great overall social project of the coming years and decades. To this end, Covestro is also cooperating with upstream partners such as Neste to meet its raw material requirements from renewable sources to an even greater extent.
By transforming its production, Covestro is helping important industrial sectors such as the automotive and electronics industries achieve greater sustainability and reduce the dependence on crude oil.
In the future, both companies intend to expand the scope of their partnership, also with regard to other types of polymers. At the same time, they are inviting other stakeholders along the value chains to cooperate.
Source: Covestro