Dongsung Chemical, headquartered in South Korea and UPM Biochemicals, headquartered in Germany have agreed to form a strategic partnership to develop renewable products using bio-based raw materials, initially for footwear materials. Dongsung Chemical has signed a Letter of Intent for this strategic partnership to develop a renewable polyurethane product based on UPM Biochemicals’ biobased mono-ethylene glycols (MEG), UPM BioPura™.
UPM is investing Euro 750 million to build the world’s first industry scale biorefinery at Leuna in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, to convert sustainably sourced, certified woody biomass into next generation biochemicals. The facility aims to produce 220,000 tonnes annually in total. Bio-MEG is one of the outputs. UPM targets the start-up for end 2023.
UPM's Bio-MEG is produced from sustainably sourced, certified hardwood obtained from forests in the regions around Leuna in Germany. The biomass does not compete with food resources and has a carbon reduction effect of min. 70% compared to fossil fuel-based MEG. UPM is actively working on further optimizing processes to enable carbon neutrality or even negativity of the product.
UPM Biochemicals offers innovative, sustainable and competitive wood-based biochemicals for replacing fossil-based raw materials and improving the environmental performance in various applications.
