Does Bio-Based Always Mean Better?

By Jane Palmer, CEO, Nature Coatings

Every so often, I’ll be on a call with a prospective customer interested in our bio-based black pigments and someone will say: “Bio-based doesn’t always mean better.”

And you know what? They’re absolutely right!

Just because something is labeled “bio-based” doesn’t automatically mean it’s safer, healthier, or more sustainable. In some cases, bio-based materials can end up being just as harmful to people and the planet—or even more so—than the traditional materials they’re meant to replace.

I’ve spent years researching alternatives to carbon black and other fossil based ingredients. An important lesson I learned was this: it’s not enough to swap out carbon black for any bio-based pigment and call it a win. When speaking at conferences for paints, cosmetics, packaging, or textiles, I always tell the same truth: you have to ask the hard questions. You have to go beyond the buzzwords.

Let’s start with the obvious: why go bio-based at all?

For many of our customers, it’s about future-proofing. The regulatory and policy environment is changing fast. More bans. Stricter reporting. Greater pressure from consumers, retailers, and lawmakers. In that context, finding a reliable bio-based solution isn’t just a sustainability goal—it’s a strategic business decision.

Other customers come to us because they want to reduce their environmental footprint or eliminate toxic ingredients like carbon black, which is derived from fossil fuels and classified as a possible human carcinogen. Inhalation risks, VOC emissions, and fine particle pollution are all well documented. Removing that risk isn’t just good practice—it’s good for people.

But here’s where bio-based gets complicated.

If someone tells you their product is bio-based, you need to ask: how bio-based is it? 10%? 100%? What’s the feedstock? Is it ethically sourced? Is it competing with food or contributing to deforestation? Will it cost me more or perform worse than the alternative? These aren’t just environmental questions. They’re business risks. Here’s how we address those important questions at Nature Coatings.

We sought and received USDA C14 certification, meaning our BioBlack products received BioPreferred Certification at 100%. It means our customers can be sure that our products have been independently verified to be 100% bio-based.

Why does that matter? Because when you're pitching a materials change internally—whether to your procurement team, your product safety team, or your CFO—certified data gives you credibility. You can plug it into your emissions calculations, build it into your risk assessments, and scale the solution with confidence. Global regulations are evolving quickly and while the general trend is toward more regulation, meeting the strictest standards today could save you major costs and headaches down the road.

And yet, certification alone isn’t enough.

The part of the conversation I hear most often—the part where people say “bio-based isn’t always better”—usually has to do with unintended consequences. And they’re not wrong.

Take palm oil. It’s natural. It’s renewable. It’s technically bio-based. But it’s also a driver of mass deforestation and ecological collapse. That’s not “better.” That’s just a new set of problems.

The same issues can show up in black pigments marketed as bio-based—from food crops, animal sources, or unverified plant-based feedstocks. If you don’t know the full story of what you’re sourcing, you could be exposing your company to real environmental, regulatory, or reputational risk.

Carbon black doesn’t leave much to the imagination. It’s harmful, period. We know exactly what it is and what it does. But that doesn’t mean we should accept it as the default—it means our alternatives have to be truly better.

That’s why we’ve gone even further with BioBlack.

Not only is it 100% bio-based—we’ve also made sure the source material is abundant wood waste from FSC-certified forests. It means we’re using byproducts from responsible forestry, not harvesting new wood or diverting resources from food systems. The same scrutiny needs to apply to any new material, whether it’s derived from crops or waste. 

I’ll be honest: getting so many strictly enforced certifications is not the easy route. Verifying feedstocks, securing third-party certification, and building a stable, ethical supply chain takes real work. But it’s worth it because our customers can implement BioBlack with confidence—knowing it won’t come back to bite them down the road.

BioBlack was also engineered to meet—and often surpass—carbon black’s UV protection and lightfastness with a proprietary bio-based formula, and its natural blue undertone delivers the same cool, deep richness designers demand. At price parity in many applications, you get superior performance and sustainability without extra cost.

So no, bio-based doesn’t automatically mean better.

But when done right—with full transparency, rigorous certification, and responsible sourcing—it absolutely can be. When you ask the right questions, demand the right certifications, and trace the full impact of your supply chain—you can get to a solution that is better.

At Nature Coatings, we’ve built BioBlack to stand up to the highest scrutiny. If you’ve done your homework, if you’re asking the hard questions, if you’ve been burned before by claims that didn’t hold up—we want to talk to you. We welcome the skeptics, because we’ve been there too. And while bio-based may not always be better, we are 100% confident that BioBlack is.