Borealis AG Ventures into Renewable Polypropylene Production

Borealis AG is an Austrian based chemical company, regarded as the world's eighth-largest producer of Polyethylene (PE) and Polypropylene (PP). The company used fossil fuel as the raw material to produce PP, but the company achieved a major breakthrough by devising a method for commercially producing PP with the use of a renewable feedstock. The renewable feedstock is produced in Kallo and Beringen by Neste, an oil refining and marketing company located in Espoo, Finland. The outstanding feat achieved by the company was awarded recently by the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) organization with ISCC Plus certification for its renewable PP. This venture is in strong collaboration with company’s value chain partners such as Neste and Henkel. The ideation also aligns with the Borealis aim to safeguard that 100% of its consumer products are recyclable, reusable, or produced from renewable sources by the year 2025. Neste by using its proprietary NEXBTL technology produces renewable propane and sells renewable propane to the Borealis Propane dehydrogenation plant in Kallo, where it is converted to renewable Propylene, then subsequently to renewable PP. Since it is renewable in nature, therefore, the end-user industries such as consumer packaging, automotive, healthcare, and appliance industries can now manufacture their end-use products with a lower carbon footprint based PP. Henkel, a global market leader in the adhesives sector which holds renowned brands in Laundry & Home Care and Beauty Care, has been adopting creative packaging strategies by using sustainable raw materials. Adopting renewable PP content in its packaging would mark another step in its efforts to reduce its use of fossil fuel-based virgin plastics by 50 percent by 2025. Mr. Lucrèce Foufopoulos, Borealis Executive Vice President Polyolefins said that producing renewable PP based on renewable feedstock for the first time in history is another concrete step towards a more sustainable carbon future.