State of Sustainability Report: Reducing CO₂ Edition

CO₂-reducing materials are those with lesser carbon footprints than their conventional counterparts. Using such materials reduces the total emissions created throughout the production process. 

Only half of survey respondents report currently using CO₂-reducing materials, making it the sustainability priority with the lowest adoption rate at this time. With nearly 30% intending to add CO₂-reducing materials to their repertoire within the next three years, this may be about to change. 

France and Brazil reported notably higher levels of CO₂-reducing materials use, at 65% and 62% respectively. 

Forty-two percent of those using CO₂-reducing materials are driven primarily by environmental impact, and 68% call it an added value of this category. Another 22% are driven by customer/consumer demand. 

Pricing and availability both cause significant challenges in this area: they are named the largest issues by 33% and 30% of respondents respectively. 

Regulations propel the adoption of materials with a low carbon footprint but also present many challenges. Thirteen percent called this their primary driver of low-CO₂ materials, and 35% chose regulatory compliance as an added value of the technologies. And yet, fourteen percent called it their main difficulty with low-CO₂ materials. 

“Regulations can be a double-edged sword. While they often aim to push sustainable progress forward, they can also hinder innovation,” says Lotte Vater, Industrial Solutions Market Manager, IMCD Germany. “This is because many organisations, especially smaller ones, may struggle to keep up with current standards, keeping them from trying new approaches that would push innovation boundaries.”

The most common reason that people who intend to use CO₂-reducing materials don’t yet do so is a lack of good alternatives for their industries. Thirty-seven percent cite this as a factor. Continued developments in the biomass balance approach may make this a less relevant concern as time goes on. 

“Using materials made with the biomass balance approach reduces CO₂ emissions from the start of chemistry,” says Vater. “It allows us to balance the use of renewable resources with fossil resources, while simultaneously driving down carbon outputs we forge a more sustainable path towards a greener tomorrow.”

Several additional factors play a role in preventing more widespread adoption of CO₂-reducing materials. Twenty-eight percent include lack of customer/consumer demand as a factor, while 27% don’t know which materials to use, and 23% say the materials don’t provide the technical performance needed.  

When these organisations do begin using CO₂-reducing materials, their primary drivers will largely align with those of the companies already working toward CO₂ reduction: customer/consumer demand and environmental impact. 

However, the relevance of these two factors appears reversed for those planning to add CO₂-reducing materials in the next three years compared to those already using them. Thirty-seven percent of respondents in this category called customer/consumer demand the primary driver, while 23% named environmental impact. 

Respondents in the Americas and EMEA report similar rates of CO₂-reducing materials use, and users in both regions were most likely to cite environmental impact as the driving force behind the adoption of CO₂-reducing materials. 

However, additional drivers of low-CO₂materials use varied. Customer/consumer demand was a significantly more important factor in EMEA, where 31% of respondents called it their primary driver, compared to just 8% in the Americas. 

In contrast, respondents in the Americas cited technical performance and availability as drivers in this area much more often. Eighteen percent of those in the Americas called technical performance their primary driver, while no EMEA users did. Thirteen percent of those in the Americas called availability their primary driver, compared to just 2% in EMEA. 

Pricing is a top issue in both the Americas and EMEA, with about a third of respondents in each region calling it their top challenge.

Survey responses indicate that the availability of CO₂-reducing materials is a much larger issue for EMEA companies than those in the Americas. Thirty-four percent of respondents in EMEA call this their primary challenge with low-CO₂ products, while just 21% in the Americas do so. 

While respondents in the Americas were more likely to call regulatory compliance a driver of CO₂ reduction than those in EMEA, they were also more likely to call regulations the primary challenge of these materials. 

Lack of good alternative materials, low customer/consumer demand, and a knowledge gap around which alternatives to use were common barriers to CO₂ reduction in both the Americas and EMEA. 

Users in EMEA also reported significant obstacles in two areas that did not impact many in the Americas: technical performance and price. Almost 30% of EMEA respondents who intend to incorporate CO₂-reducing materials in the next three years said that the technical performance of those materials stood in their way, compared to just 11% in the Americas. Twenty-one percent in EMEA called price a barrier, while no respondents from the Americas included price as an issue blocking their adoption of CO₂-reducing materials. 

Companies with under 100 employees are least likely to be using CO₂-reducing materials today. Just 42% of respondents from these businesses report using these materials, compared to 58% from companies with 100 to 1,000 employees, and 63% from companies with over 1,000 employees. 

Customer/consumer demand is a larger factor in causing the biggest businesses to switch to CO₂-reducing materials. Thirty-six percent of respondents from companies with over 1,000 employees called this their chief driver, compared with less than 20% of those from small companies. 

Environmental impact is a top driver regardless of company size. 

When asked to rank the eight sustainability priorities based on how impactful they would be over the next few years, survey respondents placed CO₂-reducing materials third, after renewable source materials and materials for health and safety. 

Sixteen percent predicted it would be the most impactful trend. This figure rises when looking specifically at research & development professionals, 23% of whom predicted that CO₂-reducing materials would be the most impactful sustainability area of the next few years. 

Only 13% of respondents consider themselves experts in this category—the lowest proportion across sustainability areas. With CO₂reduction such a critical target, and this type of materials poised to make such an impact, it’s clear that more members of the industry will need to achieve expert status in the coming years.