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A Roundtable with Tikkurila, Jotun Paints Europe Ltd. and AkzoNobel Powder Coatings

EU Infrastructure looks into how the protective coatings industry is stepping up to the challenges of sustainability, durability and education.

EUINFRA. There is currently a trend towards sustainability and greener construction throughout Europe and beyond. How is this trend reflected in the paints and coatings industry?
Dave Russell. I believe it's a trend that's here to stay and it's having a huge impact on what we are doing already. Jotun has developed several new products that meet the challenge head on. For example, our heat reflecting paints help save energy and our water borne, lead free and solvent free coatings are not only technically brilliant, they are also better for the environment. One leading project Jotun is heavily involved in is supplying Masdar City near Abu Dhabi - headquarters of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the world's first carbon-neutral, zero waste city.

Petri Järvinen. There are big differences in Europe when talking about trends towards sustainability and greener construction concerning paints and coatings. Nordic Countries have been the forerunners with environmentally compliant products for several years and the majority of the products used in construction industry are based on water-borne or high-solids technology. However, these products are not so commonly used in the Eastern European market area. This unbalance in the European paint market allows some paints and coatings manufacturers to expand their geographical market area, while the rest need to focus on the development of new economical and environmentally compliant products to defend their market shares.

Stephen Drew. AkzoNobel Powder Coatings is working with all its stakeholders towards a sustainable future. Powder coatings are an attractive alternative to liquid coatings through their inherent sustainability since they contain no solvents and have application levels up to 99 percent. We are constantly sourcing more sustainable and renewable raw materials and energy resources from our suppliers. We are also developing innovative product technologies based on sustainability and energy efficiency. These include our patented Particle Management Technology, Low Temperature Cure products, and also dry-on-dry technology to reduce the overall curing time of multiple coatings.

We recognise that our customers have tough sustainability objectives and we are working with them to provide a sustainable alternative in order to meet these targets. Our ecological footprint has been recognised as amongst the lowest in the coatings industry and we use ecological efficiency analyses (EEA's) to reconfirm for our customers that powder coatings are a sustainable coating material.

Infrastructure applications put a huge amount of stress on paints and coatings. How are companies like yours working to create ever more durable solutions for users?
PJ. The demand for long lasting high-quality systems to protect infrastructure has increased year by year. Facility owners have started to realise the total lifetime costs of protecting infrastructure and prefer to invest in more durable paint systems in the beginning to achieve savings from reduced maintenance painting costs in later phases.

Tikkurila has a strong focus on developing and marketing environmentally compliant and high-quality products, not forgetting the total economy of the painting process beneficial for painting contractors and facility owners. We are also able to offer a water-borne paint system for the C4 corrosivity category that is fully cured in eight hours, with the help of our Dry Tech technology. Alongside the environmental aspects, we take into account the cost efficiency of our products, meaning shorter overcoating time between paint layers and the reduction of the number of layers in the protective paint system. In addition, new high-solids products have enabled us to reduce the number of paint layers without sacrificing the durability and the corrosion protection performance.

SD. The cost of many infrastructure projects has until recently risen steadily over the past decade and the design lifetime of such projects has also increased. This has required coatings suppliers to evolve their product development to meet the increased coatings performance specifications, and has become a global trend in the infrastructure industries. In the oil and gas industry, major pipelines are now expected to last up to 40 years in service before rehabilitation. AkzoNobel continues to be at the forefront of coating developments and testing to ensure that pipelines are protected both externally and internally with its Resicoat anti-corrosion FBE product range to meet these requirements. In the architectural aluminium industry for building construction the most demanding coatings standards now require guaranteed performance for 25 years. Akzonobel Powder Coatings has driven such developments with its Interpon D3000 novel fluoro-polymer product range which easily exceeds these requirements.

DR. Jotun delivers long-lasting coating systems to the infrastructure market. Longer life coating systems increase maintenance cycles leading to less time and cost in maintenance and refurbishment, reduced energy consumption on recoating and less impact on the environment. 

The difficult economic situation is having a big impact on the construction industry putting budgets under a great deal of strain. Why would it be a mistake to target industrial coatings as a potential area to cut costs?
SD. Although in the current economic climate it is inevitable that new construction projects will focus on cost, it is important to recognise that coatings perform the important role of protecting steel from corrosion and that their cost represents only a tiny fraction of the cost of the overall project. Therefore if the focus on cost-cutting is applied to the coating system, the cost savings will be minimal and, more importantly, it is inevitable that many coatings suppliers will aim to develop less expensive products to fit with the new commercial environment. This has potentially serious implications for the long-term anti-corrosion performance of the coatings offered and hence large potential costs in the future for repair and rehabilitation of the coating.

DR. To my mind, any decision to use coatings containing low quality, harmful chemicals is short sighted. The future safe removal and disposal of toxic coatings is likely to be costly, not only in monetary terms but also to health and to the environment.

PJ. Due to the current difficult economic situation, many customers have started to look at low cost materials, which is an alarming trend that will cause higher maintenance costs for facility owners in the future. If a protective paint system with the estimated service lifetime of 15 years is replaced by a system lasting five years, the material cost saving might be 30-50 percent, but the total lifetime cost for corrosion protection including in maintenance painting costs might be 2-3 times higher.

Alongside increased costs the lifetime carbon foot print of construction will be 2-3 times higher meaning higher VOC emissions, more waste and heavier stress for the environment and nature. By selecting more durable systems from the beginning you can save both money and the environment.

Developing ever more sophisticated technologies and solutions is only one part of the challenge facing paints and coatings manufacturers. Another is educating and promoting the value of these solutions to the end user. How do you approach this and what unique challenges does product promotion pose in Europe?
DR. Improving awareness is a vital part of what we do at Jotun. That's why we spend time presenting safe solutions to the challenges faced daily by architects, industry leaders and local authorities. With a little education we are gradually winning over owners by asking them to look beyond the initial coating cost to the future costs and risks associated with poor coating selection.

We are also actively involved in developing green standards and legislation to promote the use of better, longer-term coatings for the benefit of everyone.

PJ. The importance of traditional marketing like advertising in the trade press and the professional magazines has been decreased during this decade. Product promotion is still needed, but in different forms than earlier. Our customers including architects, engineers, painting contractors and facility owners are keener on reading articles, case studies and references. The availability of technical information is important for them and that is why the importance of the Internet is increasing all the time, especially the younger generation prefers the Internet as a main information source. Keeping information up-to-date in different language versions is a challenge in a region like Europe, but the Internet as an information channel offers a cost efficient way to do it.

As customers want to focus on their core businesses, they require more support and services from their paints and coatings supplier. Alongside product availability with a variety of colours, professional distribution networks can offer local service and support resulting in high customer satisfaction. 

SD. In a truly market-driven process of developing new technologies and solutions the coatings manufacturer will have identified the specific needs of his target end-user group. This ensures that new product introductions will have good market acceptance. However for such introductions to be successful long-term, the coatings manufacturer also needs to understand the needs of his end-users' clients so that these are also met. The new product must be able to demonstrate real benefits in terms of, for example, higher performance or lower costs. If the new technology is industry-changing and sets new performance standards it is useful to form an industry group of market-leading end-users to define the new standard and to set up a quality-circle organisation. AkzoNobel Powder Coatings has successfully followed this route over many years through its involvement in numerous industry organisations. For example the renowned GSK group in Germany was formed to establish a quality standard for FBE powder coatings on drinking water pipeline accessories such as valves and fittings.

The panel

Dave Russell is Regional Director for Protective Coatings at Jotun Paints Europe Ltd., responsible for mainland Europe and Russia. Previously he worked for Sigma Coatings and prior to that as a specialist in business transformation and new territory implementations at various companies worldwide. Currently he is developing Jotun's presence in the protective coatings market.

Petri Järvinen works as a Vice President in Tikkurila's SBU Industrial Coatings and he is responsible for Technology and Business Support functions. He has undertaken different tasks and positions in the paints and coatings industry and has close to 30 years experience in this specific area.

Stephen M Drew gained a first-class honours B.Sc. in Colour Chemistry in 1977 and a Ph.D in Organic Photochemistry from the University of Leeds in 1980. He was also awarded a Degree in Business Administration from the University of Northumbria, England in 1986. He joined Akzo Nobel in 1980, with now more than 25 years' experience in powder coatings. He has held a number of senior management positions in Akzo Nobel, and is currently Global Sales Manager for Functional Powder Coatings.