Coatings World’s 2021 CEO Forum features executives from nine coatings companies offering their insights on the state of the industry.
This year’s forum includes CEOs from leading coatings companies from the U.S., Europe and Asia Pacific. The participants are Robert Bryant, CEO, Axalta; John Falder, CEO, HMG Paints; Michael H. McGarry, chairman and CEO, PPG Industries; Lars Petersson, president and CEO, Hempel Group; Abhijit Roy, CEO, Berger Paints; Christophe Sabas, CEO, Beckers Group; Frank Sullivan, CEO, RPM; Masaaki Tanaka, chairman, president & CEO, Nippon Paint Holdings and Thierry Vanlancker, CEO, AkzoNobel and Armodios Yannidis, CEO, Vitex.
CW: In what areas are you focusing your R&D efforts?
Bryant: Innovation is embedded in everything we do at Axalta. We continuously challenge ourselves to think differently – not just when it comes to R&D – but in how we address everyday problems, design processes, and apply forward-thinking to what’s coming next in our industry.
Axalta invests about four percent of sales into R&D and technology services, which is among the highest levels in our industry peer group.
Our R&D efforts continue to focus on providing solutions for customers that improve productivity, deliver superior performance, and support environmental goals. Some examples over the past year include:
The launch of our advanced Color Proofing, the latest enhancement to our proprietary color retrieval software, ColorNet, allows collision customers to view paint colors and digitally rotate them on 3D vehicle renderings to determine color match and blendability across panels.
We expanded our Imron Industrial portfolio in North America with the introduction of a polyurethane wood coatings line designed to protect and enhance the aesthetics of wood surfaces. The addition of the Imron Industrial Wood product line marked Axalta's official expansion into the polyurethane wood coatings market.
We significantly grew our commercial vehicle portfolio in Europe with the addition of PercoTop CS388 SupraSand, a high-build epoxy primer that decreases drying and sanding times by 50%, and Imron 2K high durability clearcoat in Europe, which delivers four times better gloss retention compared to similar products.
We see R&D as a growth driver and will leverage new products and innovation to extend our technology edge and to open opportunities in current and prospective markets.
Falder: 2020 saw significant investment in the companies R&D facilities with the total refit and refurbishment of the area, the new Riverside Works Innovation Centre is working on a myriad of projects from new Decorative Coatings to Defense Coatings. The updated R&D facilities now feature an advanced analytical testing lab where we now have the facilities for IRR testing, accelerated weather testing and more which allows products to be pushed to their limits and optimized for performance.
The R&D team is also working on a program of high-opacity Red, Yellow and Orange products for key markets such as the Industrial, ACE and Commercial Vehicle. One of the unique services HMG provides its customers is the chance to develop bespoke products for their needs so the R&D team is constantly working on a range of systems, these are now managed with a new integrated CRM System that allows the Lab, Sales, Marketing and Production to have input along the product development process.
McGarry: Our capital-light structure enabled us to sustain long-term investments, despite the challenging economic environment in 2020.
We continued to invest in mobility and digital initiatives that will pay significant dividends in the years ahead. We launched new passive fire protection coatings for the inside of battery casings for electric vehicles and thermal gap fillers, delivering initial wins in the automotive market beyond our traditional products. We also continue to invest significant financial and people resources to help automotive customers accelerate the rollout of electric vehicles.
PPG remains focused on developing sustainable solutions for our customers, furthering our focus on digital technology and tools, and continuing to develop functional coatings that solve our customers’ biggest challenges.
We maintain a long-standing tradition of developing leading-edge technologies, achieving the highest quality standards and exceeding customers’ requirements. PPG holds more than 9,000 global patents and invests approximately 3% of sales into our R&D efforts annually.
Our more than 3,500 technical experts at more than 100 global locations support our customers in industrial, transportation, consumer products, and construction markets and aftermarkets. In 2020, PPG launched a number of sustainable, innovative products, including:
- PPG ENVIROCRON HTE Max extreme corrosion polyester powder topcoat that protects large truck wheels and agricultural, heavy-duty and industrial equipment. The product offers up to three times the corrosion resistance of traditional single-coat powders without the higher labor costs and longer process times associated with primer/topcoat systems;
- Low-VOC waterborne coating system for the Chinese refinish market that offers extremely low volatile organic (VOC) content;
- PPG ENVIROCRON HeatSense powder coating for heat-sensitive wood, composite applications that can cure in as few as five minutes at 250 degrees Fahrenheit in a convection or infrared oven and is fully reclaimable, allowing cost-effective and efficient production;
- PPG AQUACOVER waterborne coating system for shipping containers, an odorless, non-toxic, waterborne solution that enables a 65% reduction in volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions.
Petersson: We will meet the needs of tomorrow through increased investment in innovation, digitalization and customer partnerships today. Our new state-of-the-art R&D center in Denmark is an example of this. With this and our other global R&D centers, we can continue to develop value-adding solutions across segments. Additionally, we have established a cross-functional innovation and incubation lab to lead transformational innovation, particularly around the interface between traditional coating solutions and digitalization – what we call ‘inside-the-can’ and ‘outside-the-can’ solutions.
We are also focusing on attracting and retaining leading scientists and researchers, as we need the best people to accelerate our growth.
Roy: Our developmental R&D efforts are going to be on water-based coatings, DIY products and Construction chemicals while being focused on achieving overall cost reduction and adopting green technologies.
Sabas: The real impact of our Sustainability Strategy will come from our products. Getting more sustainable products to the market is one of our main R&D efforts. Our R&D teams are working on developing solutions that have a positive impact; coatings that are materially safe and have a function that solves tomorrow’s challenges. Therefore, we must anticipate what our customers and ultimately society need and bring those products to the market. This also goes beyond our own company: in order to develop, produce and sell net-sustainable products, the entire value chain has to be involved. With our newly developed proprietary Beckers Sustainability Index, we are able to provide transparency on the sustainability of our product portfolio.
Sullivan: Innovation is a hallmark of RPM, and we continue to stress the importance of new product development during these unprecedented times. Many RPM operating companies ramped up R&D efforts during 2020 and we are making significant capital investments in others. A few examples include Carboline’s new state-of-the-art Fire-Science Research Center, Euclid Chemical’s innovative solvent-free epoxy coatings products, Rust-Oleum’s roof coating program and Pettit Paint’s new underwater metal running gear coatings.
Tanaka: Nippon Paint Holdings will celebrate its 140th anniversary this year. Our company has been committed to developing products that solve social issues since its founding. We expect the demand for anti-viral products will continue to increase under the New Normal. Therefore, our R&D activities will be focused on increasing the speed of the development of technologies for PROTECTON brand of anti-viral products, as I mentioned in my answer to your previous question. In one step to achieve this goal, Nippon Paint Holdings signed an industry-academia co-creation agreement with the University of Tokyo in May 2020.
We have been undertaking joint projects for more than six months to verify the anti-viral efficacy of our paint and accelerate the development of paint technologies with anti-viral properties for early social implementation. In addition, Nippon Paint Holdings launched a social cooperation program titled “Creation of Innovative Coating Technologies” at the Graduate School of Engineering, the University of Tokyo, in October 2020. Furthermore, Nippon Paint Holdings proved the effectiveness of its paint in inactivating the SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19) on surfaces coated with water-based paint with photocatalytic properties. Effectiveness was proven by a joint test with the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research at the University of Ghana in October 2020.
In November 2020, the University of Tokyo began testing to verify the efficacy of our paint in inactivating the SARS-CoV-2 virus under actual conditions of use. Testing for the verification of efficacy against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, including variant strains, is progressing.
In the automotive coatings field, the market environment is changing rapidly, including the shift to CASE (Connected, Autonomous, Shared, and Electric) mobility and the realignment of the automobile industry. We must think about how we can respond to the diversifying requirements of customers and needs that will emerge in the near future. At the same time, these changes are important business opportunities. For instance, we believe that “keeping a safe distance” and “ensuring the safety of space” will continue to be areas that attract attention.
Vanlancker: We’re proud that our Paint the Future ecosystem is expanding; our programs continued online throughout the year in 2020. We finished our first supplier program with 5 partnerships signed, and we launched the second one in a fully virtual setting. In 2020 we had our first regional challenge in Brazil with 135 submissions received and 5 partnerships signed. For 2021, we announced our next regional startup challenge in China. We received nearly 200 entries for our internal Paint the Future innovation challenge. It aimed to capture some of the creative thinking which emerged over the months following the COVID-19 outbreak, as employees improvised and learned to adapt to a new and challenging situation. We’re now working on the next global startup challenge
We continue to build on our leading track record with our People. Planet. Paint. approach to sustainable business. Around 40% of our revenue is already generated from sustainable solutions and we aim to increase this to more than 50% by 2030.
In 2020, we announced our Planet ambitions and we’re steadily progressing towards our goals. The percentage of renewable electricity we used in 2020 was 40%; up 8% versus 2019. We also reduced relative waste by 5% and achieved a 4% reduction in carbon emissions during the year.
I’m proud to say we’re widely seen as the leader in paints and coatings and our sustainability performance has been recognized by key benchmarks, including Sustainalytics, MSCI, and EcoVadis.
Yannidis: At Vitex, we are convinced of the contribution of our products to sustainability. It is magic that our products act as sustainability catalysts, providing innumerable benefits which with minimal burden on the environment maximize and multiply the lifetime of the painted surface!
In this direction, the highlight of our R&D efforts is the new VAIRO™ project. We are proud to contribute to the fight against the pandemic and promote public health with high-performance Antiviral paints that will have our proprietary VAIRO Healthcare Technology™, which beneficially increases the defense against virus transmission over the painted surfaces, like one of the human coronaviruses.
In the same direction, VITEX CARE® concept is being developed to offer best-in-class wall paints with enhanced easy to clean, washability, antibacterial and antifungal performance. These paints are certified with EUROFINS Indoor Air Comfort Gold and have been awarded the British Allergy Foundation Seal of Approval for the reduced levels of allergens in the indoor building environment, nice to have for those living with asthma and allergies!
CW: What are your company’s long-term plans?
Bryant: We’re excited about the future and to be a leader in the global coatings industry for a long time. We are, and will continue to be, focused on our four strategic imperatives of people, innovation, growth, and performance.
Our long-term view is one of sustained growth, and we’ll achieve it through our continued focus on customers, our commitment to operational excellence, embracing an innovation mindset, investing in our high-performing culture, and delivering value to our shareholders.
Falder: 2020 saw the appointment of Jonathan Falder and Steven Hutton to the board of directors as we look to the future and the long-term plans for the business. Both have a unique understanding of the business but also a drive to improve the business with new innovative processes and technology. The growth in certain markets is being underpinned with investment on-site in a number of production departments, with the investment in new machinery and buildings to accommodate the growth in customer demand and production output. HMG will always strive to be the best paint company to their customers offering the best product and service, with this will follow sustainable growth.
Petersson: As a trusted global producer of paint and coating solutions, we have a responsibility to advance our own performance and standards in the field of sustainability. Sustainability is a key enabler for our growth in the coming five years, as we see a great opportunity in helping customers reach their sustainability targets while reducing our environmental footprint and amplifying the benefits we create for society through our own work and the work of our owner, the Hempel Foundation. That is why Hempel is fully committed to taking the lead on sustainability within the coatings industry.
Roy: Berger Paints India turns 100 in two years and we aspire to climb in the rankings of the top paint companies of the world. We are focused on building an organization that can capitalize on the opportunities that lie ahead. The current cycle of investments are focused on technology, capacity enhancement, R&D, distribution and talent so that we can improve in all these areas and become a better company.
Sabas: Beckers is part of Lindéngruppen. From its founding 150 years ago, there has always been an underlying theme of responsibility to stakeholders, not just shareholders. And Jenny Lindén Urnes truly believes in strong personal values. We would like Beckers to be the most sustainable paint company in the world. We articulate this vision around three key pillars: People, Products and Operations. We have reshaped the organization to align all parts with sustainability. Some of the progress we made in 2020 within each of the three streams include our 2020 occupational health & safety focus; our work towards a zero-accident goal; the prevention of COVID-19 spreading among Beckers’ colleagues; the implementation of a non-discrimination policy; an initiative towards a people growth and feedback culture; the market introduction and line trials of new net-sustainable products; and the development of a rating scheme and indicator for the sustainability of coatings. We also signed new contracts for green electricity and introduced waste management initiatives on different sites.
Sullivan: Innovation is a hallmark of RPM, and we continue to stress the importance of new product development during these unprecedented times. Many RPM operating companies ramped up R&D efforts during 2020 and we are making significant capital investments in others. A few examples include Carboline’s new state-of-the-art Fire-Science Research Center, Euclid Chemical’s innovative solvent-free epoxy coatings products, Rust-Oleum’s roof coating program and Pettit Paint’s new underwater metal running gear coatings.
Tanaka: I want us to be the best company in the world. Toward this goal, we will meet the needs of customers appropriately, identify social issues and provide solutions, thereby creating new businesses and growing steadily each year by tapping into new business opportunities. In addition, we will create a comfortable working environment, in addition to achieving company growth to make our company the best company to work for. We will create a positive cycle in which excellent people who see this company achieve growth will join us, which will drive further growth of our businesses.
ESG and SDGs initiatives are aimed at solving social issues. Nippon Paint Holdings started about 140 years ago with the founder’s goal of developing a non-toxic zinc white to help women suffering from poisoning by the white lead. Our company originates from the dedication to solve social issues. By going back to our founding philosophy, we will pursue sustainable and long-term growth and Maximization of Shareholder Value through a commitment to ESG initiatives. Our goal is the Maximization of Shareholder Value (MSV) through the creation of wealth by solving social issues. MSV is predicated on the fulfillment of our duties to stakeholders. These duties include making investments to strengthen our business foundation for sustainable growth, achieving mutual prosperity with vendors, providing remuneration to employees, and supplying products that meet customers’ needs. This stance sets us apart from the concept of shareholder primacy. We will reward shareholders for assuming the risk associated with owning our stock by maximizing the value that remains after the fulfillment of these duties.
Vanlancker: Our new Grow & Deliver strategy (announced in February last year) represents the second stage of our journey – building on a strong foundation and positive momentum from 15 by 20 – to double the profit of AkzoNobel and reclaim our place as the reference in the industry.
Going forward, we’ll balance growth and profitability improvement. We target to grow at least in line with our relevant markets and deliver an average of 50 basis points increase in return on sales each year.
Our ambitious targets – as part of our People. Planet. Paint. approach to sustainability – will ensure we remain the reference in our industry.
We target a top-quartile engagement score and at least 30% female executives by 2025. As announced last year, we’re also moving towards zero waste as a company and aim to cut our carbon emissions in half by 2030. We’ll do this by saving energy and using 100% renewable electricity. We also aim to generate more than 50% of our revenue from sustainable solutions by 2030.
Yannidis: To remain independent, pioneering and dynamic.
