Sustainability is something the entire furniture industry is embracing. It is also a broadening and ever-evolving concept. It spans topics such as:
- CO2 footprint reduction
- Circularity
- Health and safety
- Social equality
- Material efficiency
For a global industrial supplier like Henkel, this means we cannot treat sustainability as a ‘one-off’ initiative. We need to constantly update our understanding of sustainability and design new innovations across every area within our capability, taking into account regulations and social trends.
On top of that, we are always thinking, ‘What can we do to improve the experience for our customers?’ Meeting their demands for legally compliant, practical and safe products is a critical part of this. That’s why we can never stop developing new solutions that deliver greater benefits to people and the planet, and enable our customers to stay one step ahead.
How a New Solution Becomes a Reality
Commercializing a new adhesive solution starts with an idea. When it comes to ideation, we focus closely on market needs, which we identify and assess constantly in a structured manner. The idea could be broad, or it could be highly specific, depending on industry and customer. In well-justified cases, it could even be for a single customer to develop a specific product!
Every new product goes through the following steps:
- Based on needs and ideas, innovation pipelines are filled
- Prospective products go through a stringent multi-stage process, including various checks, tests and pilots
- This includes an assessment of the product‘s sustainability contribution, and how it relates to key themes such as CO2 footprint reduction, circularity and safety
- Once we have made our assessment, we back it up with proof points such as safety data sheets
- After all the stages are passed, the product can be commercially produced and sold
- We also support our customers in achieving their own sustainability certifications with these products
You can see that sustainability is an explicit part of our product pipeline. This is good for transparency, but more than that, it accelerates our progress, because we can filter our existing portfolio and innovation pipeline towards how many products – for example – improve the safety of workers at our customers’ sites.
Understanding how our portfolio contributes to sustainability means we can proactively steer development in this direction.
Micro Emission: Innovation in Practice
As we developed and grew our Micro Emission adhesive range over the years, two main factors drove the process:
- Operator health. Whichever kind of PUR hotmelt is used to bond furniture, the end product will be safe for consumers. But for Henkel’s customers, who use adhesives as part of a manufacturing process, Micro Emission grades are a big step forward in terms of health and safety. They reduce the isocyanate to the extent that it cannot evaporate in any quantity sufficient to cause sensitization. This contributes to a safer, more comfortable working environment.
- Performance. ME technologies were developed to provide occupational safety benefits, without compromising on any aspect of performance. This gives customers an enormous peace-of-mind benefit when adopting ME grades.
The adoption of ME products will also come as part of a wider societal commitment to health, safety and sustainability. One of the world’s largest furniture brands has pledged to eliminate all CMR (carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic for reproduction) from its supply chains in the coming years. Others are following, driving cross-industry change. And this will be a one-way transition, as business move towards the greatest goal of all: protecting people’s health and happiness.