Chemical Company BASF Releases Emissions Data for 45,000 Products

(Photo Credit: BASF)

BASF plans to share carbon dioxide emissions data for their entire portfolio of around 45,000 products with customers. The global chemical company said that this transparent emissions information should help customers reduce the carbon footprints of their own activities and end products.

Since 2007, BASF has been calculating the product carbon footprint (PCF) for individual products, according to the company. This calculation is based on data from their own production network as well as average data for purchased raw materials and purchased energy. BASF said that the methodology follows general standards for life cycle analysis, such as ISO 14044, ISO 14067, and the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Product Standard.

A digital solution developed in-house will allow BSF to calculate the PCF for their products on a global scale. The company anticipates starting with select product and customer segments in the coming months, and then making PCF data available for the full portfolio by the end of next year.

“With the help of PCFs, our customers can identify where the levers for avoiding greenhouse gas emissions are,” said Christoph Jäkel, head of corporate sustainability. “We are already offering them the opportunity to reduce the carbon footprint of selected products by using alternative raw materials and renewable energies.”

One example the company provided is their biomass balance approach, which replaces fossil resources with renewable raw materials derived from organic waste and vegetable oils in BASF’s Production Verbund.

Another is the ChemCycling project, where BASF uses plastic waste as a source for raw materials. Applying thermochemical processes to mixed or contaminated plastics that normally couldn’t be recycled allows these plastics to be used to make syngas or oils — inputs in chemical production that can partially replace fossil resources, the company said.

Besides potentially shrinking customers’ carbon footprints, the expanded carbon footprint calculator also supports BASF’s own goal of keeping production-related emissions constant through 2030, even as the company grows.