Origin Materials, Inc. Earns USDA Certified Biobased Product Label
August 05, 2021 at 07:00 am EDT
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Origin Materials, Inc. announced that it has earned the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Certified Biobased Product label. The products, chloromethyl furfural (CMF) and hydrothermal carbon (HTC), are now able to display a unique USDA label that highlights their percentage of biobased content. Third-party verification for a product's biobased content is administered through the USDA BioPreferred Program, an initiative created by the 2002 Farm Bill (and recently reauthorized by the 2018 Farm Bill). One of the goals of the BioPreferred Program is to increase the development, purchase and use of biobased products. The USDA Certified Biobased Product label displays a product's biobased content, which is the portion of a product that comes from a renewable source, such as plant, animal, marine, or forestry feedstocks. Utilizing renewable, biobased materials displaces the need for non-renewable petroleum-based chemicals. Company’s CMF and HTC qualify for mandatory federal purchasing by meeting or exceeding the minimum biobased content requirements for one or more product categories identified by the USDA. Biobased products, through petroleum displacement, have played an increasingly important role in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that exacerbate global climate change. Biobased products are cost-comparative, readily available, and perform as well as or better than their conventional counterparts. According to a report that USDA released in July 2019, biobased products contributed $459 billion to the U.S. economy in 2016 (a 17% increase from 2014) and support, directly and indirectly, 4.6 million jobs. The report's research team estimates the reduction of fossil fuels and associated GHG emissions from biobased products equivalent to approximately 12 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) prevented as of 2016. The increased production of renewable chemicals and biobased products contributes to the development and expansion of the U.S. bioeconomy where society looks to agriculture for sustainable sources of fuel, energy, chemicals, and products.
Origin Materials, Inc. is a carbon negative materials company. The Company is specializing in technology that has the potential to replace petroleum-based materials with decarbonized materials in a range of end products, including food and beverage packaging, clothing, textiles, plastics, car parts, carpeting, tires, adhesives, soil amendments and fuels. It has also developed other products that can enhance sustainability, such as its 100% polyethylene terephthalate (PET) circular caps and closures that can enable fully-recyclable PET containers and reduce waste through light-weighting, while providing performance such as greater oxygen and carbon dioxide (CO2) barrier properties that can increase shelf-life. The Company has developed a biomass conversion technology to convert biomass, or plant-based carbon, into the versatile building block chemicals chloromethylfurfural (CMF) and hydrothermal carbon (HTC), as well as other oils and extractives and other co-products.
ORIGIN MATERIALS, INC. 
