BASF has become the first chemicals company offering Rainforest Alliance certified personal care ingredients based on coconut oil.
This follows certification of the company’s production site in Cassina Rizzardi, Italy according to the Rainforest Alliance Mass Balance coconut certification scheme.
The mass balance (MB) supply chain model is said to foster physical flow of certified raw materials within supply chains, while farmers benefit from selling Rainforest Alliance certified coconuts and copra.
Coconut oil is an important feedstock for the chemicals industry, with BASF using it to produce ingredients for cosmetic products, in addition to detergents, cleaning agents and foodstuffs.
“With the certification of our first production site and the offer of Rainforest Alliance certified personal care ingredients to our customers, amongst palm and castor oil, we have established another supply chain based on renewables,” said Jutta Stute, Sustainability Manager for BASF’s Care Chemicals division.
“We have thus taken an important step in transforming the market towards certified, sustainably sourced oleochemicals.”
BASF’s certification of coconut oil was facilitated via a development partnership between BASF, Cargill, Procter & Gamble and German government agency Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), with support from the Rainforest Alliance and the Philippine Coconut Authority.
The project aims to increase the income and economic self-sufficiency of smallholder coconut farmers in the Philippines and Indonesia by promoting a sustainable certified coconut oil supply chain.
Between November 2015 and October 2018 more than 4,100 coconut farmers were trained in good agricultural practice (GAP), good processing practice as well as farm management.
Approximately 1,600 farmers received additional training and have been certified according to the Rainforest Alliance Sustainable Agriculture Standard.
According to BASF, trained and certified farmers have, on average, a 47% higher income than farmers who did not participate in the programme.
