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Wednesday 8 August 2018

Biomass Balance: A new approach to increase use of sustainable renewable raw materials for coatings industry




By Dr Nikolaus Raupp
Continuous population growth is the global driving force for the increasing demand for raw materials, food and arable land as well as increasing environmental deterioration.
Nowadays, nearly everybody can feel the impact of environmental pollutions in daily life and many people are now interested in a more sustainable lifestyle. More consumers want to contribute by considering the environmental impacts and taking more sustainable decisions. The need to find sustainable solutions has always been a main driver in the coatings industry.
Sustainability contribution will also be measured by how to maintain or even improve durability and material efficiency when using sustainable solutions. They are still and will remain the most important sustainability contributions of the industry.
In the past years, renewable raw materials have become a hot topic. As most paints and coatings are produced with limited fossil raw materials (oil and natural gas), the use of renewable raw materials can help improve the sustainability profile of the product.
However, there are two main challenges:
1. Not all renewable raw materials are sustainable!
In many cases an increasing demand of renewable raw materials has led to huge negative side effects such as deforestation, loss of biodiversity or even increasing food prices. These negative effects have to be prevented by all means, otherwise the shift to renewables is no sustainable improvement.

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