Perstorp leads push for tighter mass balance rules

Four Swedish organizations are pushing the International Organization for Standardization to use what they call traceable mass balance as a basis for standardizing the mass balance method of making renewable chemical products. In the mass balance approach, companies feed both renewable and fossil raw materials into an existing production process and assign the renewable raw materials to a portion of the output. The method the groups are proposing requires that the renewable ingredients be used at the site where the end product is made and not be transferred or traded. The organizations—Perstorp, Trioplast, Sekab, and Johanneberg Science Park—say trading schemes undermine the credibility of renewable and recycled products and slow the development of a circular economy. Perstorp used the traceable mass balance method when it introduced what it calls the world’s first renewable polyol. And Ineos used a form of mass balance when it debuted renewable polyvinyl chloride earlier this year based on the wood product tall oil.