TOFA and sustainability: what a by-product feedstock means in your reporting

Tall oil, the feedstock behind TOFA, is a by-product of kraft pulping: no tree is grown and no land is set aside for it. In your reporting you can state, with documents behind it, that you use a renewable, by-product-derived feedstock. A numerical climate claim, however, needs product-specific data.

Why is tall oil counted as a by-product?

Tall oil is released during kraft (sulphate) pulping of softwood. The mill's purpose is to produce pulp; tall oil is an unavoidable side-stream of that process. On the sustainability side this has one important consequence: your feedstock demand does not by itself trigger a new planting, a new land use or a new harvesting decision. The demand lands on the output of a process that is already running.

The definition of the KORKİMYA bio-based portfolio states it the same way: tall oil derivatives obtained from by-products of the paper and pulp industry. This is not a marketing statement about the product being environmentally friendly; it is a structural fact about where the feedstock comes from, and it is exactly what can be used in reporting.

Cascading valorisation: one side-stream, a family of products

The second dimension of being a by-product is how much of that side-stream is actually valorised. When tall oil is distilled, almost every fraction separated along the column becomes a product. The fractions richest in fatty acid become TOFA 185 (rosin acid max 2%) and TOFA 180 (max 3%). The intermediate fraction that deliberately retains rosin acid is Tall Oil Fatty Acids Rich Distillate (total rosin acids reported at 20.4). The fraction where the rosin acid share is held higher still is distilled tall oil (DTO, rosin acid content max 30%). The high-viscosity stream left at the bottom of the column becomes Ecophalt (tall oil pitch).

The sustainability argument here is not a comparison but a description of structure: the fractions coming out of the same side-stream are not each other's waste. When one buyer takes TOFA 185, the remaining rosin-acid-rich fraction is not discarded; it becomes another buyer's feedstock. This cascading structure is a fact a procurement team can honestly use in its supply chain narrative.

What can you say in your reporting?

The statements a buyer can support directly with supplier documents in their own sustainability report are limited but real. The regulatory line is identical for TOFA 180, TOFA 185 and rich distillate: the product is KKDIK-registered (Türkiye), a Turkish Safety Data Sheet (SDS) is provided, and a certificate of analysis (CoA) is issued for every lot. Those three items are the concrete evidence set you can put under a reporting line.

• The feedstock is renewable and forest-derived: the portfolio definition of the product states this directly.
• The feedstock is a by-product of kraft pulping; no crop is grown specifically for this product.
• The product is traceable per lot: you receive a certificate of analysis (CoA) for each lot, and one tank load maps to one lot record.
• The product is registered on the chemicals regulation side: KKDIK registration (Türkiye) and a Turkish SDS are available.
• The storage life is defined (12 months for TOFA 180 and 185, extendable to 24 months with quality control testing), which lets you manage how much stock becomes waste.

What can you not say?

The risk in a reporting claim comes less from it being untrue than from your documents not supporting it. The table below separates the sentences a TOFA buyer often wants to write from what they actually rest on:

Why does one product's climate figure not transfer to another?

Among the tall oil derivatives there is one product with product-specific climate data: a bio-based rubber process oil, offered with a carbon footprint value based on a manufacturer declaration and the ISO 14067 method. That is a calculation made within that product's own production boundary.

No such line exists in the product data for TOFA 180, TOFA 185 or rich distillate. Coming from the same feedstock family does not mean the calculation applies to them: the distillation step, the energy input and the allocation per fraction all differ. The correct behaviour is not to borrow a number but to request a calculation specific to the product you are buying. If you do not have one, do not put a numerical climate claim in your report; feedstock origin and by-product status are already documentable information.

Which documents should you request from your supplier?

What holds up your sustainability reporting is the file, not the narrative. The document set to request when buying TOFA is short, and all of it is defined in the product data:

1. A certificate of analysis (CoA) per lot: the identity of the batch you bought and the start of your traceability chain.
2. The Turkish Safety Data Sheet (SDS): the current version, with the shipment.
3. KKDIK registration confirmation (Türkiye): the proof of compliance on the chemicals regulation side.
4. A feedstock origin statement: supplier confirmation that tall oil is a by-product of kraft pulping.
5. A request for product-specific climate data: the boundary and method of the calculation if one exists, or a written statement that it does not.

Those five items form the file that answers the audit question, what is the source of the claim. The answer to the fifth may be that it does not exist, and that is a valid answer; what is not valid is filling the gap with an estimate.