How we contribute to breakthrough innovations

Circular approaches are a major focus for our longer-term R&D and innovation activities. In 2023, we laid an important foundation for targeted R&D work at Beckers that aims to drive development toward the increased use of circular raw materials and renewable carbon. Together with around 20 key raw material suppliers in Europe and North America, which account for more than 60% of our spend, we created a roadmap toward renewable carbon, a mapping of supplier capabilities and supplier-specific product environmental footprint information. The cooperation also helped us to create a better understanding of the potential environmental impact improvement that can be expected  from the key raw material categories of our Coil Coatings by 2030. We are now integrating this important knowledge into our product innovation plan for the coming years.

We promote the use of renewable raw materials and develop coatings that provide functional sustainability benefits for customers and society. By collaborating with our upstream key partners, we are, among other things, focusing on securing access to more sustainable raw materials. At the same time, we work purposefully to identify products with issues in terms of their sustainability performance, or as they are called in the BSI, products identified as a Concern. The ambition is that these products will be fully phased out and excluded from Beckers’ product portfolio within five years of being identified. We are already making good progress and are fully committed to continue driving the development and commercialization of more sustainable products.

We are also looking into the possibility of circular chemistry and the ability to turn waste plastic into new raw materials that promote circularity and reduce emissions. There are several active projects under evaluation in these areas with external collaboration partners and technology providers. One example is our collaboration with our partners BioBTX and Symeres that aims to create a supply chain for sustainable aromatic monomers made from plastic waste.

New Sustainable Innovation Centre to develop next generation UV/EB solutions

The construction of Beckers’ new Sustainable Innovation Centre in Liverpool, UK, will be completed during 2024, and double the capacity of the Beckers’ Long-Term Development (LTD) R&D team. As all Beckers’ new product development needs to be net-sustainable, the focus will be on the next generation of more sustainable coatings that are renewable and based on the concept of circularity. The Sustainable Innovation Centre will also showcase the latest in more sustainable coating solutions. The building’s walls and roof will use a cladding system that utilizes a partially bio-resin coating developed by Beckers for improved material sustainability. The coating applied to the roof will also use Beckry®Therm technology to improve thermal control in the building to reduce the energy required for air conditioning and extend the lifespan of the cladding system.

We want to be the industry leader, not a follower

We have identified close cooperation along the entire value chain and innovation management as key levers to develop breakthrough innovations. Our ambition is to be the industry leader, not follower. In 2023, as part of our current project to develop a holistic climate strategy, we established the carbon footprint baseline for all Beckers’ products and carried out a hotspot analysis to identify the major development areas. Our data shows that embedded carbon in raw materials represents approximately 90% of Beckers’ cradle to gate company carbon footprint. This enables us to identify areas of quick wins with the potential for rapid implementation with suppliers and customers.