Care 360° Portal
Care 360° Portal
Sustainability 
Renewables

Renewable feedstocks:
Creating value through sustainability

At BASF, renewable feedstocks play an important role of developing ingredients that help shape the future of more sustainable consumer products.

By reducing reliance on finite fossil resources, they support the development of products with improved sustainability profiles. At the same time, consumer interest in biobased ingredients remains high and shows no signs of fading.

In personal care, consumers frequently associate natural ingredients with qualities such as safety and environmental friendliness. Mintel research shows that naturality is the leading attribute associated with clean beauty among U.S. consumers, alongside safety, eco-friendliness, effectiveness, and other benefits.

Demand for renewable ingredients is also growing in other industries, including home care.

Beyond supporting companies' sustainability targets, such as product carbon footprint (PCF) reduction, biobased ingredients can influence purchasing decisions. For example, 51% of Chinese consumers say that natural ingredients, such as plant-based APG surfactants, are an important factor when choosing dishwashing products.* This places natural ingredients among the top three purchasing criteria, alongside cleaning performance and safety.

Source: Mintel

Circular economy

Renewable resources play a key role in the transition to a circular economy. The goal is to decouple economic growth from the use of finite resources. 
Discover how BASF is advancing the transition to a more circular economy.
At the same time, the shift toward renewable carbon is becoming increasingly important from a raw material perspective. A more diversified feedstock base can strengthen the resilience of value chains.

Responsible sourcing 

Renewable raw materials offer significant opportunities, and their benefits can be further enhanced when they are sourced responsibly, taken into account the social and environmental impacts associated with their cultivation. Explore how BASF is driving responsible sourcing across its value chains.

Bio-based and bio-attributed solutions

Renewable carbon can be introduced into consumer products through different approaches. Two of the most important feedstock types are bio-based and bio-attributed ingredients. 
 
Bio-based products contain carbon derived from biomass that is physically present in the product. Its biogenic origin can be verified using established methods such as radiocarbon (¹⁴C) analysis.
Typical bio-based feedstocks include vegetable oils derived from palm kernel, rapeseed, castor, as well as sugars and other renewable biological sources. 


In bio-attributed products, fossil carbon feedstocks are fully or partially substituted with renewable feedstocks based on biogenic carbon using a mass balance approach. The certified mass balance system ensures that a corresponding amount of renewable feedstock is attributed to a specific product, although that biogenic carbon is not necessarily physically contained in the specific product molecule.


Both approaches support the transition away from fossil resources and offer different advantages depending on customer needs, product requirements, and sustainability objectives. 

Climate benefits of renewable feedstocks

Renewable feedstocks can help lower product carbon footprints (PCF) by introducing biogenic carbon into the value chain. Through photosynthesis, plants remove CO₂ from the atmosphere and store it as biogenic carbon in biomass. This carbon uptake is reflected in our cradle-to-gate PCFs, quantifying the climate benefit of renewable feedstocks as opposed to fossil feedstocks. Our broad portfolio of partially and wholly renewable products enables you to leverage biogenic carbon for PCF reduction in your formulations. 

Responsible sourcing of bio-based feedstocks can further enhance climate performance. The greenhouse gas emissions associated with agricultural raw materials depend not only on the feedstock itself, but also on how and where it is produced. For example, the 2026 study by Schmidt and Weidema* found that RSPO-certified palm kernel oil can achieve significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions than that of non-certified palm plantations. This demonstrates that sustainable cultivation practices can play an important role in further reducing the climate impact of bio-based ingredients.

 *“A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Palm Oil - Differentiated by RSPO Certified and Non-Certified, Regionally, Temporally, and by Grower Type”, Schmidt and Weidema. 2026

The next step starts here

The transition from fossil to renewable feedstocks is an important step toward a circular economy and thus a more sustainable future.
For your formulations, you can choose from our broad portfolio of biobased surfactants, emollients, polymers, active ingredients, and other product categories, or seamlessly switch from fossil-based products to chemically identical biomass balanced alternatives from our EcoBalanced portfolio.


Explore the opportunities for consumer-facing sustainability claims and product carbon footprint (PCF) reductions, and contact your account manager to learn which solution best fits your needs.