NatureWorks Recognized for Contributions to Renewa
Montreal, Quebec, December 05, 2005--NatureWorks LLC was honored in association with the United Nation's Kyoto Protocol meetings for its proactive initiatives that are helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions and build the global renewable energy industry.
The World Resources Institute (WRI) recognized NatureWorks as one of the major contributors to record growth in "green power." NatureWorks achieved this distinction by contracting for an initial 59 thousand MWh per year of Green-e certified wind renewable energy credits (RECs), making the company one of the largest purchasers of wind-related power in the United States.
The company's green power purchase offsets all of the energy used to operate the world's largest industrial bio-polymer manufacturing plant including a 400 million lb lactic acid plant. The facility turns ordinary field corn into a plastic resin, NatureWorks PLA, which is used in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific to make everyday consumer goods including food containers, cups, bottles, utensils, baby wipes, carpet tiles and apparel. The use of renewable energy also offsets the already low greenhouse gas emissions of the company's manufacturing process, creating the world's first greenhouse-gas neutral polymer.
"Our annually renewable feedstock, corn, already offers a significant reduction in energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, compared to petroleum-based plastics," said Dennis McGrew, vice president and chief marketing officer of NatureWorks. "The achievement of a greenhouse-gas neutral position through the use of green energy gives our corn-derived polymer a significant competitive advantage versus other polymers, such as PET--specifically, a more than than 65 percent reduction in fossil fuel used to manufacture a commercial-grade plastic."
NatureWorks is part of the WRI's Green Power Market Development Group, a unique commercial and industrial partnership dedicated to building corporate markets for green power such as wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, landfill gas, certified low-impact hydro, and fuel cells. Group members are among the largest non-utility buyers of renewable energy in the United States.
"Mother Nature is helping make a great product even better," McGrew continued. "Photosynthesis already embeds a renewable source of carbon into the plant sugars we use as our raw material to make NatureWorks PLA. Now, gusts of wind create the equivalent amount of power required to fuel our entire manufacturing process in a clean, affordable and meaningful way."
NatureWorks LLC is a stand-alone company wholly owned by Cargill. Dedicated to meeting the world's needs today without compromising the earth's ability to meet the needs of tomorrow, NatureWorks LLC is the first company to offer a family of commercially available polymers derived from 100 percent annually renewable resources with cost and performance that compete with petroleum-based packaging materials and fibers. The company applies its unique technology to the processing of natural plant sugars to create a proprietary polylactide polymer, which is marketed under the NatureWorks PLA and Ingeo fibers brand names. For more information about NatureWorks and its brands, visit www.natureworksllc.com.
