Forchem is a cleantech chemicals company producing various products out of crude tall oil to replace fossil-based materials. The crude tall oil comes from Nordic pines, and is purposefully produced as a byproduct of paper and cardboard-production. Forchem uses these byproducts to create value-added products for various applications such as paints, coatings, biolubricants, soaps, inks, and even roads. They continue to invest in research and development, to find new applications for the varied properties of the raw material.
Biodiversity benefits
Forchem reports that their products have lower carbon footprints compared to the fossil-based materials they replace. For example, they note that their distilled tall oil (DTO) product creates a mere 10% of the emissions of the soybean oil it replaces, while their tall oil rosin (TOR) has only 9% of the emissions of its gum rosin substitute. By enabling materials to be produced with significantly lower carbon emissions, Forchem is able to benefit biodiversity through helping address climate change, a key driver of biodiversity loss.
This page is part of a deep dive into biodiversity across other sectors, where we delve deeper into examples of companies adopting circular economycircular economyA systems solution framework that tackles global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution. It is based on three principles, driven by design: eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials (at their highest value), and regenerate nature. principles with positive impacts on biodiversity.
