PLA specialist TotalEnergies Corbion (Gorinchem, the Netherlands; www.totalenergies-corbion.com) announced that its Luminy polylactic acid (PLA) bioplastics successfully meets the European Union’s taxonomy regulation on climate mitigation and adaption, which sets the standard for what can be labelled as sustainable in business in the EU. The detailes assesment can be found in a whitepaper published by the company titled Planting the Future with PLA.

The intent of the taxonomy regulation is to help increase sustainable investment and drive the implementation of the European Green Deal. The operational framework of the regulation uses six environmental objectives:

• climate change mitigation
• climate change adaptation
• sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources
• transition to a circular economy
• pollution prevention and control
• protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems

Related: TotalEnergies Corbion develops biobased BOPLA solutions

TotalEnergies Corbion’s Luminy products are derived from sugarcane and are certified 100% biobased according to EN16785 and the USDA bio-preferred programme. The materials are among the few types of bioplastics that are both biobased and biodegradable, the company said.

Creating a kilogram of PLA requires 1.75 m² of sugarcane farmland, which captures 1.8 kg of CO₂ from the atmosphere as it grows, accoring to TotalEnergies Corbion. The company operates a 75,000 t/y PLA production facility in Rayong, Thailand, in which the entire production capacity requires 0.08% of arable land. The plant is ISO certified for environmental management, quality, and safety following regulations set by Bonsucro, a sugarcane industry organisation.