Plastics Without Crude Oil

Electric cars, wind turbines, smartphones, insulation materials, furniture – Covestro develops and produces plastics for many important industries.

We want to increasingly manufacture our products with alternative raw materials – and thereby reduce fossil-based resources such as crude oil, which contribute to climate change. In this way, we are making our own production as well as our customers' products more environmentally and climate-friendly. This is how we are contributing to advancing the circular economy.

We use three alternative raw material sources:

• Biomass
  Bio-based material from plant and animal sources

• Recyclates
  Recycled material from used plastics and plastic waste

• CO₂
  Carbon from carbon dioxide

The mass balance approach enables us to process alternative raw materials and fossil raw materials together. The proportion of alternative building blocks can be correctly allocated to the end products on an accounting basis – an important driver for directly addressing the transformation to the circular economy.

Under the CQ label, we provide our customers with products that contain at least 25 percent of either a physical or a mass-balanced share of alternative raw materials.