Group Management Report Products Safety Environment Human Resources Social Commitment Consolidated Financial Statements 77
Sustainable Product Strategy
ALTANA offers companies around the world specialty chemicals
solutions that make products used in daily life better
and more sustainable. We convince our customers with added
value and give them a competitive edge through our
work. Some solutions improve, for example, the functions of
end products and increase their shelf life. Others optimize
our customers’ value chain in terms of energy and resource
consumption. And still others enable our customers to reduce
the amount of critical substances in their end products
or to replace them with less critical ones. Innovative, environmentally
friendly, safely processable products play a key
role. They help ALTANA’s customers implement their own
sustainability concepts. Based on this understanding of sustainability,
the Group continuously leverages new fields
of business and paves the way for further profitable growth.
Due to their strong customer orientation, many
ALTANA companies gear their innovation strategies systematically
to a catalog of sustainability criteria at a very early
stage of product development. This includes responsible handling
of resources (water, energy, and raw materials) as well
as the goal of developing products whose effects on the environment
are as low as possible without detracting from
the product’s function. This is reflected by the increasing number
of coatings, additives, and pigment formulations that
are conceived for water-based applications and therefore
do not contain organic solvents.
Another aim of ALTANA’s product strategy is to replace
critical components with less critical ones whenever possible.
For products that need classifications due to national
or international hazardous substance regulations, ALTANA’s
companies have special data sheets on hand that provide consumers
with important information on safe storage and
further processing. Moreover, certified lifecycle analyses are
available for certain products.
In 2016, our companies made further progress in their
sustainable product portfolios. Outstanding examples are
discussed below.
Success with Seals of Approval
The EU Ecolabel introduced in the 1990s informs con-
sumers about environmental and health hazards posed by
products and services. The products have to be certified
by institutions commissioned in the respective member states
of the manufacturers. The ALTANA Group supports its
customers’ efforts by providing them with products that meet
the specifications of the Ecolabel.
In 2016, BYK achieved such convincing successes with
its Ecolabel portfolio of defoamers specifically for paints
and coatings that the division supplemented its offer with
further additives. These additives include water-based wax
emulsions, which improve the surface properties of coatings
as well as those of care products and finishes.
ALTANA products often help make customers’ end
products more sustainable. This applies, for example, to BYK-
SILCLEAN 3701, which was introduced in 2016. The additive
was specially developed for coatings of tanks and containers,
but can also be used in tunnel tubes. It helps keep
surfaces clean for a longer time and makes it easier to clean
them. Thanks to longer maintenance cycles, operational
costs are cut and less resources, for instance water and cleaning
agents, are consumed.
Reduction of Emissions
Many customers attach importance to gaining competitive
advantages in their markets with the help of environment-
and climate-friendly products. ALTANA’s companies support