RSB welcomes INEOS Group, SA Canegrowers, Xpansiv to growing community of members
RSB’s community of members continues to grow, with organisations including INEOS Group, Xpansiv, and the South African Canegrowers’ Association joining in recent months to collaborate on driving the development of our best-in-class sustainability standard to support the needs of the evolving bio-based and circular economy. The input of expert members – from across our broad membership body – provides the vital practicality and credibility which makes RSB the standard of choice for committed sustainability leaders.
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INEOS Group’s membership includes INEOS Olefins and Polymers Europe, INOVYN and INEOS Styrolution and is a further impressive step in their commitment to meaningful sustainability – having been the first to achieve RSB certification in the chemicals and polymers sector. As RSB members they will now support the ongoing development and promotion of RSB’s best-in-class sustainability standard.
Filipe Constant, Business Director at INOVYN has this to say: “This is an important next step for INOVYN and reaffirms our position as a leader in the development of a fully circular economy for PVC. As a Member of RSB we look forward to working alongside other thought leaders to develop innovative solutions that address society’s needs.”
Xpansiv is a global marketplace for environmental products, market data, and analysis, and joins the RSB community as part of its drive to transform the energy sector. Xpansiv provides a digital data format to define, measure, and provide standards for production attributes of commodities. Xpansiv’s sister company CBL Markets was selected by the International Aviation Transport Association to build and operate the Aviation Carbon Exchange (ACE) to enable the industry to meet defined carbon reduction targets.
Xpansiv’s Director of Sustainability, Jeff Cohen, said: “Xpansiv’s digital market architecture is fully aligned with the RSB mission, and we are excited to be part of this growing community. Our platform is designed to reward the full value chain creating and using sustainable commodities — connecting growers, producers, end-users, buyers, data suppliers, and standards-and-certification organisations. We look forward to working with RSB members to identify partnerships and products that can scale and help accelerate the transition to a circular, low-carbon economy.”
SA Canegrowers (The South African Canegrowers’ Association) aims to secure a sustainable South African cane growing sector that maximises the value of sugar cane in an agro-industrial environment. As the sector looks to diversify, biofuels and biomaterials offer potential markets for South African sugarcane, and SA Canegrowers has partnered with RSB to produce research on the viability of South African sugarcane ethanol as feedstock for sustainable aviation fuel production in a project made possible with the support of The Boeing Company, with the report to be released soon.
SA Canegrowers has also been supporting the development of RSB’s national indicators for South Africa. National indicators define how to assess compliance in a specific geographic context and they are developed once the RSB conducts a benchmark of its requirements – as defined in the RSB Principles & Criteria – against the existing regulatory context of that region. The results of the benchmarking process are then used to develop RSB regional indicators and pre-populate auditor checklists, thus making access to certification quicker and easier for farmers and auditors alike.
“SA Canegrowers represents thousands of sugarcane growers in the SA sugar industry. We strive to assist our members and in order to do that we need to ensure that they are sustainable, and becoming a member of RSB is a step in that direction,” says Dr Thomas Funke, Commercial Executive at SA Canegrowers.
Welcoming the new members to the community, RSB’s Executive Director Rolf Hogan said, “I am really pleased to be able to welcome these new organisations to the RSB community. These companies have all shown remarkable commitment in joining industry leaders from multiple sectors and global NGOs to embed robust sustainability principles in the circular and bio-based economy.
“As RSB members they will now support the ongoing development and promotion of RSB’s standards. We look forward to their insights and practical experience adding value to our whole community.”
