INEOS and UPM Bio­fuels announce sup­ply agree­ment for renew­able raw mater­i­als to make plastic

These new sus­tain­able mater­i­als will be used in a wide range of products from plastic food pack­aging to med­ic­al and pipes. Applic­a­tions also include BIOVYN^TM, the world’s first com­mer­cially avail­able bio-attrib­uted PVC, pro­duced by INOVYN an INEOS Busi­ness. The agree­ment sup­ports INEOS plans to make plastic from renew­able raw mater­i­als, sig­ni­fic­antly redu­cing green­house gas emis­sions and sup­port­ing a more cir­cu­lar approach to INEOS Olefins & Poly­mers pro­duc­tion. The Roundtable on Sus­tain­able Bio­ma­ter­i­als (RSB) has cer­ti­fied each step in the pro­cess, start­ing from UPM Bio­fuels con­vert­ing the wood-based residue (crude tall oil) into hydro­car­bons, through to the final poly­mer. The res­ult of UPM Bio­fuels’ pro­duc­tion is a bio-based crack­er feed­stock that does not com­pete with food pro­duc­tion. By repla­cing fossil based raw mater­i­als with UPM BioVerno in its crack­er, INEOS products will con­trib­ute to a sig­ni­fic­ant reduc­tion in car­bon emis­sions. Maiju Helin, Head of Sus­tain­ab­il­ity and Mar­ket Devel­op­ment at UPM Bio­fuels said, ​“The col­lab­or­a­tion with INEOS is a great step for­ward in the bio-eco­nomy. UPM BioVerno products now help to reduce cli­mate and envir­on­ment­al impacts in an even broad­er range of applic­a­tions. INEOS’s and UPM Bio­fuels’ com­mit­ment to RSB cer­ti­fic­a­tion cre­ates a strong com­mon ground to build on.” UPM’s bio-based crack­er feed­stock will be used by INEOS to make drop-in products that have a proven pos­it­ive envir­on­ment­al impact whilst retain­ing the same high per­form­ance and qual­ity stand­ards expec­ted by cus­tom­ers. Rob Ingram, CEO INEOS Olefins & Poly­mers Europe North said, ​“The agree­ment sup­ports INEOS plans to make plastic from renew­able raw mater­i­als, which con­trib­ute to a sig­ni­fic­ant reduc­tion in car­bon emis­sions.” ​“We are pleased to be work­ing with UPM Bio­fuels. They place fun­da­ment­al import­ance on com­mit­ment to innov­a­tion and resource effi­ciency as well as social and envir­on­ment­al respons­ib­il­ity. This part­ner­ship in com­bin­a­tion with RSB cer­ti­fic­a­tion gives cus­tom­ers the con­fid­ence that they are choos­ing a high qual­ity, sus­tain­able product.” Source: UPM, Press Release, 11.02.2020