Impact
The specific claim, and the specific limits of it
Vague environmental language is worth nothing in a pitch and less than nothing to a buyer. Here is the one quantified claim we are leaning on, where the number comes from, and the three things it does not solve.
The number
Sugarcane feedstock inverts the carbon maths
Conventional polyethylene carries a cradle-to-gate footprint of roughly +3.1 kg CO₂e per kilogram of resin. Braskem's published life cycle assessment puts its sugarcane-derived equivalent at −2.12 kg CO₂e per kilogram — a negative number, because the crop absorbs carbon from the air as it grows and that carbon ends up locked in the polymer.
Braskem states the same thing from the other direction: each tonne of its bio-based resin that replaces the fossil equivalent avoids approximately five tonnes of CO₂e. The two figures corroborate each other — the gap between −2.12 and +3.1 is about 5.2.
Figures are Braskem's own published LCA for its polyethylene, reported cradle-to-gate. They describe the resin, not a finished BioShield product, and we have not independently verified them.
Source: Sustainable Brands — How Braskem Is Reimagining Carbon Accounting for Bio-Based Plastics — Sustainable Brands (opens in a new tab) · Braskem — Braskem — I'm green bio-based portfolio (opens in a new tab)
The limits
Three things this does not fix
It still is not biodegradable
Bio-based EVA and PE are chemically identical to their fossil versions. That identity is the advantage — same performance, same machines, same recycling streams — and it is also the limitation. A sugarcane-derived mouthguard left in a field stays there just as long as a petroleum one.
Source: FKuR — FKuR — I'm green bio-based polyethylene technical overview (opens in a new tab)
Recyclable in theory is not recycled in practice
Bio-PE can go through established polyethylene recycling. A used mouthguard is a small, saliva-contaminated object, and we have not yet found a municipal programme that will take one. We are treating take-back as an open problem rather than claiming it as a feature.
Agriculture has its own footprint
Sugarcane is farmland, water, and in some regions land-use change. A cradle-to-gate carbon figure does not capture all of that. Any serious version of this company has to look at where its feedstock is grown, and we have not done that work yet.
What we would need to prove
To make a defensible environmental claim about a finished BioShield mouthguard rather than about a resin, we would need a life cycle assessment of our own product, a real manufacturing route, and an end-of-life pathway that exists outside a slide. None of that is done. It is the work.
Watch us try
We send an update when something actually happens — a material decision, a first mould, a test result, or a failure worth writing up. No schedule, no marketing.