UPM Bio­chem­ic­als and Sel­en­is form stra­tegic alli­ance to devel­op sus­tain­able PETG

UPM Bio­chem­ic­als and Sel­en­is, a sub­si­di­ary of lead­ing spe­cialty poly­es­ter man­u­fac­turer IMG Group, today announced a part­ner­ship that will help the pack­aging industry reduce its car­bon foot­print and meet the sus­tain­ab­il­ity goals of its cus­tom­ers.

The stra­tegic part­ner­ship aims to pro­duce sus­tain­able poly­ethyl­ene tere­ph­thal­ate glycol (PETG), which is used in a wide range of every­day products, includ­ing cos­met­ics and per­son­al care pack­aging as well as con­sumer dur­ables and shrink films. The intro­duc­tion of renew­able mater­i­als made from sus­tain­able bio­mass from forestry is accel­er­at­ing the shift in the pack­aging sec­tor towards great­er sus­tain­ab­il­ity and redu­cing depend­ence on fossil resources.

UPM will sup­ply Sel­en­is with Bio-Mono-Ethyl­ene Glycol (Bio-MEG) called UPM BioPura™ from its new plant in Leuna, which is the basis for the pro­duc­tion of Bio-PETG. In Leuna, UPM is build­ing the world’s first indus­tri­al-scale biore­finery. This plant will con­vert forest bio­mass from sus­tain­ably man­aged and cer­ti­fied forests in the region into sus­tain­able bio­chem­ic­als without com­pet­ing with food resources. This enables man­u­fac­tur­ers to redefine their emis­sions tar­gets and can help sig­ni­fic­antly reduce their Scope 3 emis­sions* by switch­ing from fossil to renew­able feed­stocks.

​“We are very pleased to part­ner with Sel­en­is. Sel­en­is has a strategy to con­tinu­ously reduce the car­bon foot­print of its products. Part­ner­ships like ours are at the heart of a green­er, more sus­tain­able chem­istry,” said Michael Duetsch, Vice Pres­id­ent Bio­chem­ic­als at UPM.

​“Togeth­er with Sel­en­is, we will deliv­er out­stand­ing solu­tions for their cus­tom­ers that will allow them to devel­op more sus­tain­able pack­aging solu­tions with a sig­ni­fic­antly reduced car­bon foot­print. As the pack­aging industry strives for a green­er future, the inclu­sion of bio-based mater­i­als such as UPM BioPura™ will be an essen­tial part, along­side an ever increas­ing pro­por­tion of recycled mater­i­als.“

Sel­en­is researches and devel­ops fully recyc­lable products along the PET value chain. Among oth­er things, the com­pany has a pion­eer­ing tech­no­logy for con­vert­ing plastic waste into new poly­mers. In the pro­cess, fossil raw mater­i­als are replaced by recycled poly­es­ter raw mater­i­als. By adding bio and recycled con­tent, Sel­en­is’ cus­tom­ers can thus reduce the car­bon foot­print of their products without hav­ing to sac­ri­fice famil­i­ar product prop­er­ties. The use of renew­able energy in the pro­duc­tion pro­cess fur­ther reduces emis­sions.

​“We are focus­ing our innov­a­tion efforts on mar­kets where the demand for recyc­lable solu­tions is very high due to short product life cycles. The pack­aging and and cos­met­ics indus­tries are two examples of mar­kets where man­u­fac­tur­ers give high pri­or­ity to the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy,” explains Marta Matos Gil, Chief Sus­tain­ab­il­ity Officer at Sel­en­is.

​“Devel­op­ing products that are recyc­lable and envir­on­ment­ally friendly is crit­ic­al to build­ing the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy. Our new part­ner­ship with UPM shows how we are devel­op­ing viable solu­tions for our cus­tom­ers along the entire value chain, sup­port­ing them on their jour­ney towards car­bon neut­ral­ity. Togeth­er we are driv­ing the devel­op­ment of the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy and sig­ni­fic­antly redu­cing plastic waste.”