Versalis new certified product family for sustainability
Striving for resource efficiency, Italy
Versalis featured in the 2022 Responsible Care Awards Gallery: ‘striving for resource efficiency’
Versalis, Eni’s chemical company, considers circular economy and sustainability as strategic drivers to be applied to processes and products throughout their life cycle. Thanks to dedicated research projects, the development of integrated technology platforms and partnerships with various players in the supply chain, Versalis is expanding its portfolio exploring alternative feedstock either as renewable feedstock or secondary raw materials derived by recycling processes.
From this continuous evolution, in 2021, Versalis developed a new products family made from alternative feedstocks used in combination with traditional ones. Depending on the origin of the sustainable feedstock, these products may fall into one of the following sub-families:
- Bio-attributed (BA) – from bio-naphtha obtained from organic raw materials (e.g. from vegetable oils)
- Biocircular-attributed (BCA) – from bio-circular naphtha obtained from organic by-products or waste (e.g. used cooking oil, animal fats)
- Circular-attributed (CA) – from pyrolysis oils (“recycled oil”) obtained from the chemical recycling of plastic waste that cannot be mechanically recycled.
The bio-naphtha and bio-circular naphtha currently used are supplied inside Eni’s group, from Eni’s biorefineries, in Venice Porto Marghera and Gela, guaranteeing the local supply of sustainable feedstock. In the next future, Versalis will also be able to produce CA product grades from r-oil with a proprietary technology of pyrolysis able to chemically recycle mixed plastic waste.
The BA/BCA/CAproducts family includes ISCC PLUS certified chemicals and polymers (polyethylene, polystyrene and elastomers) with specific sustainability characteristics – depending on the starting raw material – with identical chemical composition to standard products and therefore identical performance, quality and properties, allowing them to be used in conventional production plants.
ISCC PLUS, part of the ISCC (International Sustainability and Carbon Certification) system, is a voluntary certification that allows companies to produce sustainable products by using a mass balance approach, ensuring the traceability of sustainable material throughout the entire supply chain. The certification scheme outlines predefined and transparent rules for mass balance approach, the methodology that allows the allocation of the sustainable characteristics of alternative raw materials to specific final products.
By replacing shares of traditional fossil-based raw materials with alternative raw materials, this certification therefore results in products with sustainable characteristics, using current industrial assets.
Towards the goal of putting decarbonised and circular products on the market, for all BA/BCA/CAproducts Versalis has voluntarily applied the methodology for calculating GHG Emissions according to ISCC Document EU 205(GHG Add-on). The application of such guidelines is supported by internally developed tools, verified by the accredited certification body.
Starting from the GHG values of the above-mentioned products, Versalis estimated the GHG savings in comparison with traditional ones, based on principles indicated in ISO 14067 and GHG Protocol guidelines for BA/BCA products, and ISO 14040 and 14044 for CA products. The calculation of GHG savings considers for:
- BA/BCA products, the CO2 absorbed by the vegetable feedstock during the growth, by calculating the quantity of biogenic carbon allocated to the product;
- CA products, the GHG emissions avoided by substituting the incineration of not-mechanically recyclable plastic wastes with chemical recycling.