BASF First to Offer Rainforest Allaince Certified Ingredients from Coconut Oil

BASF has become the first chemical company offering Rainforest Alliance certified personal care ingredients based on coconut, reports the Cosmetics Business on July 22.  This follows certification of the company’s production site in Cassina Rizzardi, Italy, according to 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 cosmetics 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 of BASF’s Care Chemicals division.  “We have thus taken an important step in transforming the market towards certified, sustainably source oleochemical.”
BASF’s certification of coconut oil was facilitated via a development partnership between BASF, Cargill, Procter & Gamble, and German government agency Deutche 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 sustainable certified coconut oil supply chain.  According to BASF, trained and certified farmers have, on average, a 47% higher income than farmers who did not participate in the program.