Do you think the will to produce goods more sustainably has receded over the past few years as a result of the recession?

Not at all. If you think of the three pillars of sustainability – financial, social and environmental – it only makes sense that a company’s approach to production ensures their continued existence into the future. We have seen many companies evaluate their resource use, manufacturing processes and handling, to ensure that every bit of efficiency is taken advantage of. As a result, not only are the industry’s natural and reusable resources being more thoroughly made use of, but companies have seen the potential to improve profitability and secure a future for their employees.

There have been some exciting announcements in respect of biopolymers in recent months – most notably in respect of bio-SAP. How do you see these impacting on the nonwovens sector?

In the context of the high costs of raw materials, the development of new materials is encouraging news. Paradoxically, new materials face many obstacles before they are present in meaningful volumes in our industry. So far, biopolymers have had a limited impact.

So what are the obstacles to be overcome?

The prerequisites for the mainstream introduction of any new raw material or ingredient are performance, price and availability. In this respect we may find ourselves in a situation where the material is – at least initially – offered at a significantly higher price. This usually creates a ‘chicken-and-egg’ situation where potential customers argue they are not willing to pay more for the material and producers cannot benefit from economies of scale and offer the material at a competitive price unless customers commit to buying significant volume. Another major obstacle is that beyond a few niche products, consumers are unwilling to spend more, regardless of the value added of the product. Given the usual margin on nonwovens and related products, this in turn means that converters, retailers and B2B customers further down the value chain are unlikely to agree to purchase a material at a substantially higher price. Indeed, unlike biofuels – whose markets have sometimes been distorted by somewhat irrational subsidies in some countries – biopolymers are currently subject to prices more truly representative of their overall production costs.

And performance is another key aspect?

The question here is whether the use of biopolymers impacts the overall performance of the product and how they interact with other materials during production, i.e: does it require major product or process re-design? If a biopolymer can be used with little or no adjustments to the process, that will significantly increase the chance of its use.
In addition to these economic and quality conditions, marketing considerations will also come into play. The question is then whether bio-based materials add real or perceived value to the products.

So do you think converters will be able to make a convincing business case to retailers on the use of biopolymers in the product?

The sustainable arguments in favour of using these materials make sense only if its life-cycle is consistent with the biodegradable and/or renewable characteristics of the entire product.

In what respect?

There is little sense in having a diaper of which a fraction of the materials are biodegradable, especially if the product is typically landfilled or incinerated, which is the case for respectively 38% and 19% of municipal solid waste in the EU. It is possible to overcome this obstacle if the biopolymer shows a positive impact on the overall life-cycle of the product.