Archroma, a global leader in color and specialty chemicals, announced today that, as part of its ongoing, corporate-wide commitment to sustainability, it has recently completed a new “eco-assessment” of its product portfolio aimed for paper, packaging and tissue.

For newly developed products Archroma takes the necessary steps to verify that the requirements of the three major eco-labels - EU Ecolabel, Nordic Swan and Blue Angel - are being met.

As a leading producer of paper colorants, optical brightening agents and paper chemicals, Archroma conducted its portfolio assessment with a focus towards verifying its products’ compliance with those requirements. Archroma is also well under way with Phases 3 and 4 of its registration for REACH (the Regulation on Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals). 

Most recently, Archroma’s newly launched food-contact-approved dye Cartasol® Yellow 2GFC liquid has been shown to fulfill the requirements of both EU Ecolabel and Blue Angel. It has also been approved by Nordic Swan and included in their database. 

Archroma has undertaken considerable research and development in recent years to enhance its products further and to make them ever kinder for people and the environment. Based on its latest assessment, Archroma is pleased to provide the following status update for its portfolio:

• EU Ecolabel: 175 Archroma paper colorants, optical brightening agents and paper chemicals fulfill the requirements of EU Ecolabel (up to 3 certificates per product owing to different requirements, e.g., for copy and printing papers, tissue paper).
• Blue Angel: 128 paper colorants, optical brightening agents and paper chemicals fulfill the requirements of Blue Angel (up to 12 certificates per product owing to different requirements, e.g., for copy and printing papers, tissue paper, sanitary paper, recycled cardboard).
• Nordic Swan: 75 paper colorants, optical brightening agents and paper chemicals approved, with 90 products awaiting review.

This is the highest number of compliant products the company has offered to date, underscoring that it can provide customers with a comprehensive product range regardless of which of the three major eco-labels they choose to use when marketing their final products.

“Consumers are looking for sustainable products and for them the major eco-labels offer strong guidance toward buying safe products. That’s why we support paper, tissue and board producers with products fulfilling the requirements of these eco-labels”, said Valerie Diele-Braun, President of Archroma’s Paper Business.

“As part of our sustainability strategy, we have several projects within our R&D pipeline to design new products in line with these major eco-labels. Since most of our products are fully manufactured in-house, we have extensive knowledge that helps us to innovate, and enhance our products even further to bring them to market quickly,” she added. 

Additionally, Archroma regularly asks independent safety test laboratories to assess its products with regard to their compliance with well-known food-contact standards, such as those of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and Germany’s Bundesamt für Risikobewertung (BfR). This is especially key in the food packaging and tissue markets. 

For example, this past February the FDA approved Cartaguard® KST under 21 CFR 176.170 for use as a grease-resistance treatment employed prior to, or after, sheet formation for paper and paperboard. In June 2015, Archroma also launched five new food-contact-approved Cartasol dyes that have no added diethanolamine (DEA) or triethanolamine (TEA). 

Finally, Archroma continues to push forward with Phases 3 and 4 to register the majority of its products under the REACH guidelines. Carole Mislin, Head of Product Safety, noted: “So far, we have successfully registered under REACH all relevant products for Phases 1 and 2. Owing to our strong expertise in this area and to our active involvement in several REACH consortiums, we are absolutely confident we’ll be able to register our portfolio on time by the end of 2018.” 

Cartaguard® and Cartasol® are trademarks registered by Archroma in many countries.