ISCC is the first recognized biomass and bioenergy certification that arises after the European Community’s request to all EU member countries for sustainable production and processing of biomass under the Renewable Energy Directive (RED ) (EU-RL 2009/28 / EC).

The sustainability requirements, that companies must adopt under the RED directive, can be summarized in the following items:

• Characteristics of the biomass production soils
• Adoption of a mass balance system
• Reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
• Minimization of the environmental impact on air, water and soil
• Social aspects

ISCC PLUS is an extension of the ISCC program. ISCC PLUS offers the opportunity of extending sustainability certification to human and PET food or technical / chemical applications like packaging and others.

ISCC Plus is a voluntary standard that allows GT Polifilm to demonstrate the sustainability of its products by checking the sustainability, traceability and mass balance requirements of the full production process.

The reducing of greenhouse gas emissions and the reduction of dependence on fossil reserves are the main targets to an economy based on plant and circular sources. Nowadays, the demand for decarbonized, sustainable and circular materials is growing in the market. The demand is further accelerated by the leading brands who have declared to commit to achieving ambitious sustainability goals.

With a complex supply chains, a reliable link must be established between the information on the sustainability of the products and the raw materials used to produce them. In June 2021 G.T. Polifilm has obtained the ISCC Plus certification to ensure the sustainability and traceability of raw materials along packaging supply chains. GT Polifilm is the first certified industry in the Italian flexible packaging converter segment.

The ISCC Plus certification proves the sustainability of the packaging being produced with circular resins. Circular Resins means that the raw materials are obtained from the mechanical or chemical processing of recyclable waste materials of non-biological origin (fossil-based) like mixed plastic waste.

In details, to obtain ISCC Plus certification from Bureau Veritas, GT Polifilm has proved to be able to implement criteria of environmental, social and ecological sustainability also through the use of polypropylene resins from circular economy (using plastic films obtained with resins deriving from the enhancement of plastic waste obtained with chemical recycling processes) and suitable for direct contact with food.

Although, still in the start-up phase, the chemical recycling processes (pyrolysis of plastic waste) are used to generate resins for primary packaging and suitable for contact with food from plastic waste. Chemical recycling processes are extremely promising because they have no impact on the efficiency of the entire supply chain as the regenerated coextruded polypropylene is identical to the original one (homologation tests are not necessary, no changes to the process parameters of the packaging machine and same shelf life of the product).

The availability of resin from plastic waste recycled by pyrolysis or from the recycling of vegetable waste and, consequently, of circular coextruded polypropylene film is limited even though there are numerous investments underway in several European countries.

The ISCC Plus certification is added to the other certifications obtained over the years by GT Polifilm (ISO 9001 for Quality, ISO 14001 for the Environment, BRC Packaging for the hygiene of the packaging) is the beginning of a demanding path that the company will carry out to guarantee products of excellent quality and safety with the lowest possible environmental impact.

For more information or a trial test please do not hesitate to contact us.