Global demand for bio-based polyolefin demand to surge

The global market for bio-based polyolefins is forecast to reach almost 5.7 million tons in 2032, according to the latest plastics market intelligence report released by MLT Analytics (MLTA) entitled Global Bio-based Polyolefin Report—2025 Edition: Sustainability Focus Boosts Market Potential. This is the second edition of the report initially released in 2022.

The last two years have recorded a substantial boost in the number of plants certified to produce bio-based feedstocks and polyolefins, which have been geo-mapped in the latest report from MLT Analytics. 

For the current edition, MLTA has employed enhanced and updated internally-developed modeling techniques to quantify the bio-based polyolefin market by region and applications. The end result is a substantially brighter outlook than previously-estimated for bio-based polyethylene and polypropylene polymers.

“Over the past two years since our last report, we have seen many more polyolefin producers certify their production assets for mass balance bio-based polymer production,” notes report co-author and MLTA co-founder Stephen Moore. “Coupled with major projects for segregated production of polyolefins slated for Asia, Europe, and North America, we now forecast significant market growth from 2029 onwards.”

"We expect bio-based polypropylene (PP) to overtake bio-based high-density polyethylene (HDPE) in 2028, mainly due to growth in Europe as the regulatory picture should be clearer by then,” says Moore. “We also expect major growth for bio-PP in North America from 2029 driven by local availability of material,” he adds. Further, bio-HDPE should be able to retain the number two spot in the bio-based polyolefin stakes, heading off a strong challenge from bio-LDPE, whose use in extrusion coating of paperboard packaging is forecast to grow strongly.