Covestro

Covestro is a company leading in polymer materials. Covestro is a world-leading supplier of high-tech polymer materials that are innovative, sustainable, and diverse. Covestro creates high-tech polymers that are used in nearly every area of modern life and in a wide range of industries - whether automotive, construction, healthcare, cosmetics, energy, electronics, sports, and leisure. Covestro also aims to make plastics out of alternative raw materials, bringing more sustainability into production.

Together with Covestro's partners and customers, the company takes big steps to tackle a fundamental challenge, which is shifting towards a circular economy. To achieve this bold goal, Covestro innovates efficient ways to close energy and material cycles, pushing the boundaries of what is possible with polymers.

Product Safety First is the company's comprehensive program designed to help customers reduce environmental impact and improve the health and safety of their businesses.

Covestro increasingly uses alternative, sustainable raw materials in plastics production to replace crude oil. The company enters into a strategic alliance with Neste. The Finnish petroleum company produces renewable hydrocarbons from old oils and fats. These have a mass balance certification according to ISCC PLUS. The Austrian plastics manufacturer Borealis uses them to produce sustainable phenol, which Covestro then takes to manufacture the high-performance plastic polycarbonate.

Besides alternative raw materials and recycling, Covestro focuses on green energy to make the circular economy truly sustainable. Covestro forges some strong partnerships in this area. Covestro covers 45 percent of its electricity needs in Belgium from wind power provided by ENGIE, the largest producer of renewable energy in the country. Since April 2021, the Antwerp site has been supplied with green electricity. This reduces the environmental footprint in Belgium by more than 38,000 metric tons of CO₂, equivalent to the emissions of 20,000 cars per year. Covestro also covers a significant portion of its electricity needs in Germany in the future with wind energy from the North Sea.

Covestro also relies on cooperation in recycling, another pillar of the circular economy. Here, the company develops an innovative process for the chemical recycling of flexible polyurethane foam from used mattresses. Covestro operates a pilot plant for this at the Leverkusen site since the beginning of 2021. A prerequisite for recycling is that the different foams contained in mattresses are effectively separated. To this end, Covestro develops an intelligent sorting solution together with the companies Recticel and Redwave. This uses algorithms that recognize the different types of foam.

Covestro focuses on cooperative ventures to stop the influx of plastic waste into rivers and oceans. In the fight against marine litter, Covestro involves in the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, a global network of companies active since 2019. The initiative focuses on introducing and developing circular economy infrastructures, driving innovative technologies and solutions, informing and empowering nations and citizens, and cleaning up the environment of plastic waste.

It is necessary to know what raw materials are used in products and where they come from. It is essential to increase transparency in the supply chains, and Covestro teams up with Circularise and Domo Chemicals to develop a blockchain solution for the industry to trace plastics and their components. This can also be used to determine sustainability metrics such as the CO₂ footprint or water savings. Sports car manufacturer Porsche already uses the digital solution to learn more about the parts and materials it uses in its production processes.