Aroma Ingredients
Product Carbon Footprint
Gain Transparency – Request PCF from your suppliers
The Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) sums up the total greenhouse gas emissions generated by a product over the different stages of its life cycle, from the extraction of resources through the manufacturing of precursors and the making of the product itself up to the point it leaves the company’s gate (cradle-to-gate).
To make this important information available to you, BASF has developed a digital application to calculate the cradle-to-gate PCFs for its sales products. Thus, you can calculate to which extent BASF products contribute to the carbon footprint of your business activities and your own products.
A study conducted by an F&F house demonstrates that 95% of the CO2 emissions associated with a cosmetic fragrance composition can be attributed to the primary raw materials and production processes necessarily to create aroma ingredients. Less than 5% arises from compounding at fragrance houses. Therefore, significant CO2 emissions reduction of F&F houses will come from providers of raw materials, chemicals and aroma ingredients.
Choose to reduce – Take next step in reducing CO2 emissions
We, at BASF, enable our customers to calculate and to reduce the carbon footprint of their products and their CO2 emissions from sourcing by offering BASF aroma ingredients.
Our conventional product line is produced in our highly efficient Verbund sites and benefits from our continuously optimized processes and innovations from BASF Carbon Management program.
Our rPCF product line makes use of mass balance approach to deploy utilities and raw materials with a reduced PCF. The PCFs of rPCF products are reduced by about 10 to 15% compared to the conventional one.
Our BMBcert® product line replaces fossil raw materials by renewable raw materials, the so-called BASF Biomass Balance approach. This results in a PCF reduction compared to the conventional product of up to 60%.
Click here to learn more about BASF rPCF and our BMBcert® offer.
Make it comparable – Place results in the Aroma PCF Scale
To enhance transparency on PCF data in the F&F industry, we developed a PCF scoring system that classifies aroma ingredients on a 6-level color and letter scale by their PCF.
The score starts from a green A range with a PCF of 15 kg CO2e/kg and leads up to a red F range with a PCF above 500 kg CO2e/kg. The ranges were defined in order to include the broad range of PCFs of aroma ingredients available in the market.
Range A ends at 15 kg CO2e/kg as this has been calculated by Takasago to be the average PCF of a fragrance mixture for cosmetics. Within range A, there are 3 sub-groups: A++, A+, A, which allows to distinguish the products with a PCF close to zero (A++).
All BASF Aroma Ingredients that are produced in our integrated Verbund sites in Ludwigshafen, Germany and in Kuantan, Malaysia, including the rPCF and BMBcert® versions, are sorted into the ranges and communicated publicly.
Be credible – Use only reliable data for your calculations
BASF’s product carbon footprint (PCF) calculations follow the requirements and guidance given by ISO 14067:2018. In a methodology review, TÜV Rheinland has certified that the PCF methodology SCOTT developed and used by BASF SE for calculating the PCFs of BASF products is scientifically-based, is in accordance with ISO 14067:2018 and the Together for Sustainability PCF Guideline, and reflects the state of the art (ID-Nr. 0000080389: BASF SE-Certipedia).
