Replacement of Foam Blowing Agents
Replacement of high global warming potential (GWP) foam blowing agents with next generation, industrial chemicals.
About this Project
Industrial manufacturing has often-unseen emissions for goods like insulation. While insulation is an important factor for a building to reduce emissions from heating and cooling, it is often installed using high-emission spray foam.
The project is based on a simple premise of product replacement: the baseline product has a high global warming potential (GWP) and releases a significant amount of greenhouse gasses (GHG) during the manufacturing, use, and end of life of the foam product. This project provides an innovative alternative product that has a low GWP and produces significantly less GHG during the manufacturing and use of the foam product. The old baseline product’s emissions minus the new alternative product’s emissions equals the project’s emission reductions.
The project is delivered by Foam Supplies, Inc., a global expert in insulation products and one of the largest, independent, polyurethane systems suppliers in the United States. FSI has been in business since 1970, serving customers around the globe from 2 manufacturing facilities in the U.S., 3 international offices, and technology partners and distributors in 17 countries. The project’s carbon finance helps enable sustainable practices and overcomes market barriers by subsidizing the increased cost of low-carbon product manufacturing, including funding machinery conversion, and by raising awareness of the potential opportunity and need for such products.
Why We Picked This Project
This project reduces emissions through the voluntary transition to low-emission insulation products. By avoiding spray foams with hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) these industrial efficiency projects can prevent these extremely potent greenhouse gasses from reaching the atmosphere.
Not all GHGs are created equal and the most commonly used hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) used today is HFC-134a which is a highly potent greenhouse gas with a global warming potential that is 1,430 times that of CO2 according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
Revenues from this project provide a direct incentive to shift industrial practices and keep planet-warming HFC out of the atmosphere.
Our Assessment of this Project
Project Developer
Standards & Certifications
American Carbon Registry (ACR) American Carbon Registry (ACR) Methodology for Reductions and Removals from the Transition to Advanced Formulation Blowing Agents in Foam Manufacturing and Use, Version 2.0
Timeline
Initiation of Project Activities
Crediting and reporting period commences
Monitoring commences
End of the reporting and monitoring periods
End of the crediting period
Benefits & Impact
Co-Benefits
Helps small- and medium-sized industrial businesses to go above and beyond mandates to decarbonize processes and deliver products used in the built environment that will not release greenhouse gasses.
Supports the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle, in line with international frameworks, and significantly reduces their release to air, water and soil.
Sustainable Development Goals
This project supports the following UN Sustainable Development Goals:
Additional Information
2020
The revenues from the sale of carbon credits directly finance the replacement of planet-warming HFCs with methyl formate.