Toray's European Facility Receives ISCC Certification for Carbon Fiber Production
Toray Limited, a leading Japanese company in the field of advanced materials, has announced that its French subsidiary, Toray Carbon Europe, has achieved ISCC PLUS certification for its production facilities located in Lacq and Abidos, southwestern France. This certification paves the way for Toray Carbon Europe to produce and supply carbon fiber through the allocation and use of biomass or recycled materials via a mass balance approach.
The certification enables Toray Carbon Europe to reduce the life cycle inventory (LCI) of its carbon fiber, prepreg, and other products, and to enhance customers' product life cycle assessments (LCA), contributing to the construction of a circular economy.
ISCC PLUS is a voluntary certification scheme that ensures the sustainability characteristics of alternative feedstocks and guarantees that the raw materials used are derived from biomass or recycled materials. It also ensures complete traceability throughout all stages of the product manufacturing process. The mass balance approach tracks the quantity and sustainability characteristics of circulation and bio-based materials used in the value chain, based on verifiable documentation. The scheme is open to multiple industries, including food, feed, chemicals, plastics, packaging, and textiles.
Toray Carbon Europe is set to begin production of carbon fiber extracted from biomass and recycled raw materials by the end of 2023. Additionally, Toray's Ehime Plant in Japan is targeting ISCCPLUS certification by March 2024, with fiber production expected to commence by year-end. In the United States, Toray Composites America, Inc., located in Decatur, Alabama, also plans to achieve this certification in 2024. With these three locations achieving certification, Toray Group intends to produce carbon fiber from biomass or recycled raw materials at its facilities in Japan, the U.S., and Europe, ensuring a stable supply to customers globally.
Starting from the end of 2023, Toray will supply this type of carbon fiber for industrial applications in sectors such as automotive and handheld devices, which have a particularly high demand for materials that contribute to the manufacturing of sustainable products. At a later date, other applications, including aviation and sports, will also be targeted.
In line with its mid-term management plan, ProjectAP-G2025, Toray is actively promoting the development of a more sustainable economy by quantifying LCA improvements in customer products, reducing the LCI of carbon fiber, prepreg, and other products, and using and recycling bio-based materials as part of its new material ecosystem.
