Key results 2023: Pioneering sustainable solutions in coatings
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Our sustainable
product portfolio
Sustainability performance and a positive contribution to society are important aspects throughout the lifespan of our products.
Managing our sustainable product portfolio
Beckers’ overall aim is to transform the coil coating industry for the better. Smart solutions, sustainable innovations and efficient indicators that help us to drive transformative decisions are our driving forces when we continuously strive to develop our net-sustainable product portfolio.
Our overall goal is to provide coatings that bring sustainability benefits at every stage of their lifecycle, and we aim to have 50% sales from the BSI Achiever class by 2030. Products classified with Beckers Sustainability Index (BSI) Achiever, means they achieve the highest level of material and functional sustainability. Also, our ambition is to phase out and exclude products from Beckers’ product portfolio that have issues with their sustainability performance within five years of being identified. The aim is to have zero products that are classified as BSI Concern by 2030.
“The aim is to have zero products that are classified as BSI Concern by 2030.”
Why a sustainable product portfolio is material to us
Read about the associated risks and opportunities with a sustainable product portfolio and our materiality assessment in the Performance Report 2023.
How we contribute to a sustainable product portfolio
Our ambition is to change the industry for the better through the products we manufacture and sell. As a company that makes coatings from potentially toxic chemicals, sometimes scarce materials, and using fossil-based raw materials, we are aware of the potential and actual negative impacts on people and planet. To provide a sustainable product portfolio means producing products as sustainably as possible and optimizing sustainability during the customer-use phase and their performance throughout their lifespan.
The key is to incorporate more sustainable practices and materials into our products and processes. This involves constant work on new types of paint formulations to take an end-to-end value chain perspective on more sustainable solutions. With the technologies we develop for our coatings, our ambition is to inspire the wider industry to join us on our sustainability journey.
A long tradition of developing more sustainable solutions
For many years, we have promoted the use of renewable raw materials, developed coatings with a reduced climate impact and avoided materials that are scarce. Some of the coatings we sell also provide proven functional sustainability benefits for customers and society while in use. In line with our 2030 Goals, we took major steps in several key areas during 2023:
Re-introducing the verified Beckers Sustainability Index (BSI)
With the improved version of BSI, that was launched in November 2023, Beckers introduced a tool that will enable us to raise the bar when it comes to sustainability in the coatings industry. BSI is a multi-criteria product assessment methodology covering environmental and societal topics and is tailor-made for our industry. It incorporates existing indexes to measure sustainability performance from a material and functional perspective. That means that the products are evaluated based on the sustainability performance of the raw materials with the help of four indicators; Sustainable Mineral Indicator, Sustainable Organic Component Indicator, Climate Change Mitigation Indicator and Non-toxic and Non-persistent Substance Indicator. The evaluation is also covering the added value of the product based on the functionality of the coating and its contribution to the sustainability performance of the coated object.
BSI is verified by the international auditing firm EY (Ernst & Young) and aims to contribute to solving the biggest shared challenges in the industry.
First life cycle assessment of UV/EB curing
We support our customers by decarbonizing coil coatings and by regularly quantifying the environmental impact and carbon footprint of the products we sell. Our customers’ steel and aluminum products are essential engineering and construction materials in modern society, but these industries are currently among the largest emitters of CO2. At Beckers, we have developed an in-house LCA tool to enable us to produce more accurate LCAs for our coil coating products.
Following the launch of our UV/EB Coil Coating curing technology, we conducted the first Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to compare UV/EB with existing coil coating technologies. The LCA quantified the sustainability benefits including significant CO2e savings and enhanced resource efficiency compared with conventional coil coating techniques. The LCA comparison showed that sustainability related savings can be realized due to the cold-cure UV/EB process as it does not require a gas oven which eliminate the need of natural gas as well as reduce the energy consumption. UV/EB curing also requires much less paint per square unit than standard solvent-based formulations.
Empowering our sales and marketing teams on sustainability
We train and educate our people on their responsibilities to build their sustainability competence and achieve a shift in mindset. The training of our sales force is a major cornerstone of working toward our goal of 50% net-sustainable sales. Furthermore, all Beckers country teams are developing detailed plans to quantify and track sustainability improvements with customers to help them achieve 50% sales of net-sustainable products in their market.
UV/EB – launch of an industry gamechanger
Ultraviolet (UV) and electron-beam (EB) curing technology is considered a significant gamechanger in terms of the decarbonization of the Coil Coating industry. With the help of this revolutionary technology, which builds on our 18 years of pioneering work, we brought the first commercial paint formulations for dual ultraviolet and electron-beam curing to the market in 2023. These products will not only significantly reduce VOC and CO2 emissions by removing conventional ovens, but also enhance efficiency in the industry by providing up to twice the surface coverage per kilogram of paint.
Low-VOC coatings and enhanced product lifetime value
VOCs are part of the group of organic compounds that easily evaporate at room temperature when paint is applied. To reduce VOC emissions wherever possible, we provide high-performance low-VOC waterborne and high-solid coatings to our customers with less environmental and health impacts.
Additionally, we work to decrease the total cost of ownership (TCO) for a coating solution and the object it is applied to. A coating can also create value by reducing maintenance and operation costs. Our most durable system, RUV5, can significantly extend the lifetime of a building envelope with minimal maintenance, while our self-cleaning coatings reduce people’s exposure to chemicals required to clean surfaces. Our Beckry®Therm coatings can significantly reduce the energy required to cool or heat a building.
What's happening in the R&D lab?
Tune in to a conversation between James Maxted, our Global Product Sustainability Director, and James Smith, our Global R&D Director for Long Term Development, as they review our main product accomplishments in 2023 and share what we're looking forward to in 2024.
UV/EB curing technology
Years of research came to fruition with the launch of the world’s first commercial UV/EB coatings.
Our improved version of BSI
We relaunched and validated our flagship tool to measure the sustainability performance of our products.
Our Performance dashboard
Explore our comprehensive dashboard for progress across all three sustainability streams.
2030 Goals
Our 2030 Goals steer our transformation in the direction where we see that we need to go for all three streams, Products with Impact, People with Impact and Operations with Impact. These are implemented company-wide.