Certain grades of plastics additives made by Germany’s BASF (Ludwigshafen; www.basf.com) in Kaisten, Switzerland, and at its US plant in McIntosh, Alabama, have been awarded ISCC Plus certification, which designates products made with renewable feedstock using a mass balance approach.

The German chemicals and plastics giant said those sites will have a pilot function for global implementation of the mass balance system, which will enable it to widen its portfolio of core plastic additives with a reduced Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) and expand its Valeras-branded portfolio.

As part of the ISCC Plus certification process, a chain of custody must be demonstrated from the input of renewable raw materials to the final sale of a product with sustainability claims.

Related: Mass balance accounting takes hold as industry standard

With the innovation, Achim Sties, senior vice-president for plastics additives at BASF, said the company will become the first supplier of such products to offer a range of biomass balance-certified antioxidants.

Of late, Huntsman (The Woodlands, Texas; www.huntsman.com) said its polyurethanes plants in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and Wilton, UK, are now mass-balance certified. Teijin (Tokyo; www.teijin.com) announced that it has received an ISCC Plus certification for biomass-derived bisphenol A (BPA) polycarbonate resin products produced in Japan.