Cabot committed to transparent sustainability, earns ISCC Plus certification

BOSTON—It really is OK to consider just how "green" Cabot Corp.'s sustainability strides have become. But there's something to be said about the transparency, too.

Because when it comes to the breadth of its sustainability achievements, it's both the green and the transparent that are helping to set Cabot apart.

And the thing about Cabot's transparent sustainability, according to Aatif Misbah, is that it just comes naturally.

"It is really underpinned by our vision and our purpose," Misbah, Cabot vice president and general manager of sustainable solutions, told Rubber News. "Our purpose states that Cabot is here to create materials that improve daily life and enable a more sustainable future. So sustainability is really baked into the purpose of why we exist."

Sustainability may be an essential part of the recipe that defines Cabot, but it's also essential to the role that Cabot plays in helping its customers achieve their biggest sustainability goals.

"Traceability is extremely critical here," Misbah said. "One of the commitments that we make to our customers is around transparency of the use of the materials we have in our value chain and making sure that our customers understand where these materials are coming from.

"ISCC PLUS-certified facilities provide that kind of transparency and traceability across the value chain for our customers."

Turns out, Cabot claims quite a few ISCC Plus-certified sites—more than any other carbon black maker, it claims.

Last month, six Cabot facilities—three reinforcing carbon black facilities in Europe and the Americas; two masterbatch and compounding sites in Europe; and the regional headquarters for Europe, Middle East and Africa—received ISCC Plus certification.

With this distinction, Cabot can ensure its customers products that are sourced sustainably and manufactured responsibly.

"Our products, which are manufactured at our ISCC Plus-certified facilities adhere to these (stringent) requirements," Misbah said.

"In our case, we purchase tire pyrolysis oils or carbons coming from pyrolysis of these tires and reclaimed carbons. Then we use them in our manufacturing, upgrade them so that they can be used with sustainable content with reliable performance at industrial scale, and then we provide that traceability and transparency downstream to our value chain to our customers."

That transparency, ultimately, helps Cabot and its customers better align their sustainability visions with product offerings and performances that take them closer to achieving short- and long-term goals.

It also makes moving forward more sustainably a little easier because the road map is clearer. Of course, it also helps that the tire and rubber industries are moving collectively toward the same goals—more specifically those aligned with the Paris Climate Agreement.

"That really helps us," Misbah said of the unified industry focus. "The parts might be different, but we come with the point of view that there is no one silver bullet to solve these sustainability challenges. But at least we know our goal is essentially the same—to get to net-zero by 2050. And that helps us to align our goals with our customers goals."

More sustainable products start with more sustainable materials. And more sustainable materials, Misbah said, start with Cabot.

"What our customers are looking for are products with sustainable content," Misbah said. "… These can be renewable materials, these can be materials that help to lower customers' greenhouse gas footprint through the use of the products. But they are looking for sustainable content."

So Cabot is giving them more sustainable content.

Cabot, earlier this year, unveiled its Evolve platform. Targeted for the tire industry, the materials under the Evolve umbrella have three focus areas:

• Recovered: Developing reinforcing carbons from circular value chains that are produced using materials recovered from end-of-life-tires—tire pyrolysis oils through an ISCC Plus mass balance approach, for instance—or reclaimed carbons co-pelletized with virgin carbon blacks.
• Renewable: Developing reinforcing carbons made from renewable materials, such as bio-based feedstocks through an ISCC Plus mass balance approach and from bio-based particles.
• Reduced: Developing reinforcing carbons made with a reduced GHG footprint from decarbonization technologies, such as emissions capture technologies and other decarbonization processes such as CO2 capture and sequestration.

Evolve, Misbah said, is just one example of how Cabot is working to take make the industry more sustainable.

More sustainable, yes. And without compromise.

Because sustainability for sustainability's sake doesn't move the industry forward. Tire and rubber product makers need to ensure that the more sustainable materials in their products not only maintain current safety and performance properties, but improve on them.

And that's where Cabot comes in, Misbah said, bringing with it nearly a century and a half of chemistry expertise.

"(Our customers) are looking for sustainable content with the same quality and performance for their end products—and at industrial scale with the reliability and the promise that Cabot brings to our customers," Misbah said.

"Our products—for example, the carbon black we make—goes in highly sensitive applications like tires. These are critical for safety of the tires (and) these are critical for the performance of the tires And so it is very essential for our customers that they are getting the same sort of confidence in the use of the materials that we are making that they have been getting out of the materials for the last 100 years."

There is also something to be said about experience that runs that deep, Misbah said. Because, yes, Cabot has the infrastructure, knowhow and the industrial capability behind it. And that deep understanding of how to take big ideas to industrial scale makes Cabot unique, he said.

Well, that and Cabot's relationships with customers.

Because it is through those relationships that Cabot gains a better understanding of its customers' sustainability goals, performance expectations and other needs.

"It is very intricate, very interlinked—the scale-up and the industry performance and the performance that our customers need in applications," Misbah said.

"Our products are highly engineered materials. These are bringing some real performance benefits for our customers. So, even when a small change happens in the characteristics or benefits of our products, it can have meaningful change for our customers," Misbah said. "So really knowing how these scale-ups are going to affect the performance in application for our customers is extremely important. And that comes from decades and decades of working closely with our customers and having that continuous improvement mindset for slow improvements that then lead to a much more aligned performance for our customers."