Slovakia-based manufacturer of rubber fenders for ports, tugs and workboats, Bencros Marine Fenders has announced that the CO₂ savings embedded in its fenders are now independently verified and can be transferred to its customers as certified emission reductions.

The company manufactures fenders from rejected rubber compounds sourced from tyre factories and industrial rubber production, blended with rubber powder from ground end-of-life tyres. It notes that in 2024 and 2025, it reused 5 070 t of rubber waste, resulting in 13 112 t of CO₂-equivalent (CO₂e ) emission reductions verified under Proba’s methodology, with Bureau Veritas as the independent verification body.

Bencros Marine says that its fenders are the same specification and offer the same performance as the previous product but now carry a certified saving of approximately 2.6 t of CO₂e compared with a fender made from virgin rubber. The company notes that, of the savings, 2.42 t/ton can be booked directly into the buyer’s own greenhouse-gas inventory, under Scope 3, Category 1 – Purchased goods and services, with the remaining 0.16 t from avoided incineration of the waste rubber reported separately as a climate contribution. Each certificate is registered under the buyer’s name on the Proba registry, is traceable to the underlying rubber, and can be claimed once.

“This is not an offset,” explains Bencros founder and CEO Joost Komijn. “An offset is like planting a tree to offset your flight emissions. This saving happens inside the product you actually bought, in your own supply chain, and it comes straight off your own reported footprint. You buy the fender you were going to buy anyway - and with it, the CO₂ saving. It only exists because you bought the fender, and it is not for sale on any market.”

The company says that certificates are priced at €80 per ton of CO₂e saved. The proceeds fund the waste processing itself: the collection, recycling, the homogenisation and quality control that make recycled rubber suitable for fender production, and the independent verification behind each certificate. It notes that the first certificates have already been reserved by a Norwegian customer that purchased fenders together with the associated CO₂ savings. Bencros says it expects the project to save close to 5 000 t of CO₂ in 2026 alone.

The company adds that it has long been actively working on sustainability solutions for the rubber fender industry, from building its production around recovered rubber feedstock to operating a take-back approach for its products. End-of-life fenders can be returned, shredded and blended back into new fender production, further closing the loop.

Bencros also supplies reprocessed unvulcanised rubber compound to third-party rubber product manufacturers.