Biobased Companies Take A Closer Look At Sustainability

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July 18, 2014

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by Melody M. Bomgardner (Chemical & Engineering News) Thanks to the emerging bioeconomy, renewable substances made from plants can now be found in places as varied as car interiors, laundry detergent, and plastic bottles. But as the industry works feverishly to increase its scale, the marketing trope that “plant-based” is equal to sustainable may lose luster, unless green claims can be backed by data.

Consumer goods makers want to buy more biobased materials. …

The Biotechnology Industry Organization, a trade group that represents both pharmaceutical and industrial biotech firms, acknowledges that the sector “needs to firmly establish the industry’s sustainability credentials in a straightforward way.” And BIO member firms agree that building credibility requires that they use data on agricultural inputs such as sugar, starch, and vegetable oil.
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To help its member companies get started, BIO has launched a sustainable-supply-chain initiative and a voluntary policy outlining steps members can take to work with supply-chain partners, including major consumer brands. The policy will help members follow best practices and work with outside organizations to ensure they are on the path of increasing sustainability, says Paul Winters, a communications director at BIO.
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At BIO, a sustainable-supply-chain task force identified the common raw materials important to the biobased chemical industry: corn, sugarcane, sorghum, dedicated energy crops, soy, sugar beets, and forest products. It evaluated certification schemes from Bonsucro, the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials, the Forest Stewardship Council, and others to determine how credible they are.
The task force came to realize that the proliferation of schemes can make it difficult to choose certification that is both rigorous and widely used. BIO decided to recognize the International Social & Environmental Accreditation & Labelling Alliance (ISEAL) as a kind of meta-standards organization. Certifying bodies that are full members of ISEAL commit to codes of practice such as transparency, truthfulness, accessibility, rigor, impartiality, and improvement. For example, the multistakeholder Forest Stewardship Council is a full member, whereas the Sustainable Forestry Initiative—launched by the American Forest & Paper Association—is not.
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Thus, the biobased materials community welcomes the work of Field to Market, an alliance of growers, seed firms, equipment makers, grain handlers, food makers, and retailers that sponsors pilot programs to capture vital information on agriculture’s environmental impact. “It is the downstream companies, ultimately, that are the drivers because consumers want to know about sourcing,” says Rod Snyder, Field to Market’s president.

The seven-year-old organization offers a free modeling tool, the Fieldprint Calculator, that allows growers of corn, cotton, rice, wheat, potatoes, and soybeans to analyze how farming practices impact the environment and model ways to improve seven sustainability indicators. READ MORE

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