Sustainability – how to win at the infinite game

Recently I met with the DSM sustainability advisory board, which is a sparring partner and supports DSM in sharpening its focus on strategic issues, deepening its understanding of external stakeholder needs and handling dilemmas around sustainability. 

The effort of the board connects deeply with my personal view. That there is one area where we should be focusing our efforts: sustainability. For industries like ours, we face a few serious challenges. 

The environmentalist Paul Hawkden has called sustainability “an infinite game”. I understand what he means. The goal posts are constantly moving – and meeting this challenge requires constant adaption and reinvention. 

Whether environmental, political or regulatory, we don’t yet know the exact nature of the tests awaiting organizations further down the road. Nor do we know all the tools and solutions that will be in place to address them. 

The global carbon pricing initiative – which DSM strongly supports – is a case in point. While the goal is undoubtedly a worthy one, there is still uncertainty, even within the European community, over the optimum approach to take. 

What we do know is that, by 2050, the world’s population will likely exceed 9 billion people. There will be ever-greater demands on increasingly scarce resources. The need to minimize air and land pollution will be even more critical than it is today. 

Playing to our strengths

For the international coatings market, “future-proofing” is not easy (or not a walk in the park). 

Globescan’s 2016 survey of corporate sustainability leaders found that the chemical industry had experienced the biggest decline in sustainability performance of any major sector since 2000. 61% of respondents rated the industry's efforts to transition to sustainable developments as "poor". 

There are mitigating circumstances, of course. “Cleaner”, services-based industries – the finance and technology firms – naturally have a head start. But we need to up our game to avoid slipping further behind. 

We must work to understand – and resolve – a complex myriad of issues. We must consume less energy and make the switch to renewables. We must reduce emissions. We must integrate cleaner, safer ingredients into our end products and manufacturing processes. We must start thinking and designing for circularity.

These are all major challenges for an industry like ours. But in tackling them we have one crucial advantage: science.

A team effort

At DSM, we are harnessing our scientific competences and technological expertise to make a number of key changes to our business model. 

As President of DSM Resins & Functional Materials, I’m proud to play a central role in this vital organizational strategy. DSM Resins & Functional Materials has begun the shift from traditional solvent-based coatings to new innovations, such as waterborne, powder, plant-based and UV products.

These actions will have a positive trickle-down effect on sectors such as automotive, building & construction, transportation, and heavy machinery, helping our end markets to achieve their own environmental objectives. 

Meanwhile, across our wider organization, we are working toward a circular economy whereby we reduce critical resource use, replace finite resources with renewable ones, extend the lifetime of materials and products, enable recycling and recover waste streams. Various forms of ‘waste’ and renewable resources become input for value-added products. These materials can then be re-used, repaired, re-purposed or recovered, and given a new life in the next generation of products.

We are also looking at ways to minimize the impact of our products and manufacturing processes on air-quality. Our goal is both to safeguard the environment, and to protect the health of our consumers, our employees and communities.

It’s an awesome challenge – and the goal posts will continue shifting. But I believe our industry is more than a match for it. We just need to work collectively to understand the complex issues we’re facing, and to find intelligent solutions. 

By playing smart – and as a team – the sustainability game is one we can surely win.

All views expressed in this article are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of DSM.