Cutting the impact of paint – sustainable innovation in action

Forum for the Future’s work on paint has led to a range of new products and services which show how sustainable innovation can save companies money and open new business opportunities.

We studied the entire lifecycle of paint, from raw materials through manufacturing to use and disposal, to find ways to make it more sustainable in a three-year collaboration with ICI Paints AkzoNobel, a manufacturer and supplier, and construction group Carillion, a major user of paint.

Our report Paint the Town Green details the innovations which came out of the project and the commercial benefits they achieved. It explains how to conduct innovation driven by environmental and social responsibility and why it makes good business sense.

“By studying the entire life cycle of paint we’ve found many ways to make it more sustainable and gain competitive advantage. We are seizing these opportunities by launching eco-friendly paints, lighter packaging, new recycling services and other innovations.”  - David Brunt, Global Environment and Sustainability Director, ICI Paints AkzoNobel.

The project has enabled ICI Paints AkzoNobel to make rapid improvements in the sustainability of its paints. In March 2010 it launches Dulux Ecosense, a new paint range which has half the carbon and water footprint of the standard paint the company sold in 2008 and creates 40% less waste. Its Ecosure trade paint won the “Green Product” category in the 2009 Green Business Awards.

The company has also launched a number of products and services which save energy, resources and waste.

• Improved cans which use less plastic and are easier to clean and recycle. 
• A recycling scheme in which vehicles delivering paint to Dulux Decorator Centres bring back used cans.
• A mobile brush and roller cleaning station for building sites: instead of pouring contaminated water down the drains it is captured for reuse with the paint residue filtered out.
• Manufacturing improvements which save millions of litres of water used in cleaning production equipment by using it to make new paint.

Forum for the Future has developed new tools to facilitate sustainable innovation and embedded them into product development procedures at ICI Paints AkzoNobel. The key to creating Ecosure and Ecosense was the Environmental Impact Analyser, a tool which can measure the key impacts of a proposed new formulation and compare them against an existing product.

The project, which ended in 2009, has also built its partners’ capacity to innovate sustainably by introducing staff to new methods, developing internal collaboration and building networks across the product life cycle.

For more information contact Chris Sherwin: c.sherwin@forumforthefuture.org

Read the full Paint the Town Green report.