Adhesives' role in driving sustainability for home appliances

From consumers’ perspective, global consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable products, and for a brand that gives back to society and has a low carbon footprint.

From appliance manufacturers' perspective, sustainability is seamlessly integrated into everything they do: gathering consumer insights, developing products, sourcing, supply chain and production, branding, and marketing. Most manufacturers have set clear goals such as eliminating harmful materials, striving for carbon neutral production footprints, zero waste to landfill, as well as increasing renewable energy usage and the recyclability rate of products.

From a regulations & policies perspective, on the one hand, we see enhanced restrictions for volatile organic compound (VOC) content and the use of hazardous and toxic materials. On the other hand, policymakers across the globe continue to push the right-to-repair approach as well as incentivise high energy-efficiency appliances and devices, for example via the latest inflation reduction act (IRA) in the US.

At Henkel, sustainability is a core element of our company purpose: "Pioneers at heart for the good of generations." Our 2030+ Sustainability Ambition Framework outlines the goals of driving change towards a regenerative planet, thriving communities, and acting as a trusted partner to our stakeholders.

Zooming into the appliance market specifically, many players throughout the value chain haven't considered the role of adhesives in sustainability.  However, adhesives do have a significant impact for sustainability and Henkel is committed to advancing the cause in the following focus areas:

We help appliance manufacturers on their scope 1 & 2 related CO2/energy reduction and dematerialisation.

We support decarbonisation at the manufacturing phase by driving a less energy-intensive curing process, and enabling a streamlined manufacturing process resulting in reduced material consumption during production; we also help appliance manufacturers to reduce material waste and scrap.

In addition, we play an active role in decarbonisation at the end-use phase by enabling reliable performance for green appliances such as inverter air conditioners, energy-efficient smart refrigerators, heat exchangers, and heat pumps.

We strive to maximise renewable carbon content by changing from fossil-based materials (e.g. based on crude oil and natural gas) to biomass-based materials (e.g. from plants and trees).

Meanwhile, we are innovating debonding technologies to enable separation of different materials post-full-cure for reuse, repair, refurbishing, remanufacturing, and/or recycling purposes to create a circular system.

We advance the chemical safety of our solutions and drive improved occupational health and safety for our customers as well as consumers.

We make sure to enhance health at the appliance manufacturing phase by eliminating and reducing hazardous raw materials from formulations as well as those materials that create vapour during production such as solvents, oximes, and isocyanates.

Moreover, we also enhance safety at the product end-use phase by offering excellent flame-retardant and high-temperature-resistant performance.

Beyond regulation pushes on health and safety, we proactively take responsibility to develop healthier and safer products throughout the manufacturing, application, and end-use phases.

For all of the above, innovation is one of the most important success factors that we are doubling down on, thus we are able to strengthen our pioneering position on sustainability and accelerate the market transition towards sustainability. 

What's more, we can't make it happen alone. The strong and constructive collaboration and partnerships with customers and other players throughout the value chain are also key to success. 

In addition, it is important to drive sustainability early enough at the product definition and design phases.