The Future Is Green – for the Coatings Industry Too!

Germany in summer 2017. The nation of carmakers is shocked. A court in the south of the country has ruled in favour of a diesel driving ban. From 2018 many diesel cars will be banned from the roads of Stuttgart. Other German cities are sure to follow and other European cities have already imposed bans in the city centres. I believe this will also provide a boost for electromobility and the reawakened environmental consciousness of politics will undoubtedly extend to other fields. Which will in turn increase consumer awareness and lead to more environmentally friendly and sustainable products. Sooner or later, this is going to hit the coatings industry. Is our sector prepared?

In my opinion the coatings industry is fully prepared when it comes to offering the market environmentally friendly products. In some applications perhaps less so than in others. Interior paint manufacturers have known for a while that consumers don't only want visually stunning paints in their homes, they also want paints that are environmentally friendly and pose no risk to their health. The coatings industry has many solutions to offer. VOCs have been reduced, you can barely smell interior paints now and they are even able to remove odours and pollutants.

Away from oil!

For decades we have been hearing that the chemical industry, and therefore also the coatings industry, needs to break free from its dependency on oil because there are finite resources. Renewable raw materials are constantly under discussion.

Suppliers to the coatings industry offer an increasing range of biobased raw materials. For instance, a green hardener with a high carbon content from renewable resources was presented at the ECS 2015 for PUR coatings. At this year's European Coatings Show the company was able to present an automotive coating that had been formulated with this hardener. A tremendous achievement!