This year, high-end professional sports brand DESCENTE DISCENTE released new athletic shoes for Spring/Summer 2025 such as the CHRON series, DUALIS series and BODYFLEX TRAINING series, whose outsoles are made of LG Chem's sustainable material, Bio-Balanced Synthetic Rubber (Bio-Balanced BR), and are now Bio-Balanced BR, a sustainable material from LG Chem, is now available for sale.
This series of products is labeled with the LG Chem environmental brand “LETZero” logo, which is an environmental material brand to be launched by LG Chem in 2021, implying LG Chem's commitment to “realizing zero environmental pollution and zero growth in carbon emissions”. “LETZero is the brand name of LG Chem's eco-friendly materials to be launched in 2021.
LG Chem Bio-Balanced Synthetic Rubber (Bio-Balanced BR) has three major advantages: high performance, sustainability, and stable raw materials:
01 High Performance
Sports shoes need to be wear-resistant, non-slip and aesthetically pleasing, so the soles must be made of rubber with good abrasion resistance and non-slip properties. LG Chem's Bio-Balanced BR not only has a high degree of transparency in its appearance, DIN friction loss of less than 50mm3, and excellent resistance to yellowing, abrasion, flexing, and ease of processing, but it also conforms to the market's demand for environmentally friendly materials that is gradually expanding. It is also in line with the expanding market demand for environmentally friendly materials.
In addition, Bio-Balanced BR materials are used in industrial rubber products such as tires, golf ball cores, conveyor belts, rubber isolators and scaffolding.
02 Sustainable
LG Chem's Bio-Balanced BR is an environmentally friendly material that utilizes bio-renewable raw materials extracted from waste cooking oil, plant by-products, etc. mixed with fossil raw materials, and it has received ISCC Plus international certification. It effectively reduces the use of fossil raw materials and significantly lowers the carbon emissions generated during the production process, with a carbon reduction effect of 138.7% of petroleum-based BR materials.
03 Stable supply of raw materials
LG Chem is building Korea's first first-generation bio-oil (HVO) plant in a joint venture with Italy's ENI Group ENI, with an expected annual production scale of approximately 300,000 tons. When HVO is used as bio-naphtha, it can provide a stable supply of raw materials for the production of Bio-BR, SSBR, SAP, and PVC.
