Turning corn into plastic reduces the use of petroleum in the plastic industry. When compared to petroleum-based plastics, this process uses 68 percent less fossil fuel to produce equal amounts of plastic. Adding to the favorable energy profile, NatureWorks® offsets the energy used at our Blair, Nebraska facility by purchasing renewable energy credits from wind and other certified “green” power sources.

Our NatureWorks® polymer is the world’s first greenhouse-gas-neutral polymer, and makes NatureWorks one of the top 25 U.S. corporate consumers of green energy. And because it is compostable, recyclable and easy to incinerate, NatureWorks® polymers can reduce landfill waste by hundreds of millions of pounds per year.

• Ingeo™ fibers and Copenhagen. Every one of the 15,000 dignitaries who attended the Copenhagen climate change summit walked on carpets and drank from cups made from Ingeo™ fibers from plants, not oil. Cargill’s NatureWorks, LLC markets our proprietary biopolymer under the Ingeo™ brand. It is the first commercially available low-carbon footprint polymer derived from 100 percent annually renewable resources with cost and performance that compete with petroleum-based packaging and fiber materials. The manufacturing process uses 65 percent less fossil fuel and reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 80-90 percent compared to traditional petroleum-based polymers.