business Irgacor and Darocur lines of photoinitiators are incorporated into powder coatings, allowing them to cure on exposure to radiation. They are based on oc-hydroxy ketone, a-amino ketone, and benzophenone technology, says Keith D. Cooper, Ciba's business director for photographic- and radiation-curing additives. Cooper says that although "UV-curing powders are emerging, they still have a way to go. But they are a good answer wherever there is a worry that substrates could deform under intense heat" Another supplier of UV photoinitiators is Exton, Pa.-based Sartomer, owned by France's TotalFina. Business director Paul Elias says UV-curing powder coatings have gone commercial in the oddest places—for instance, they are used to coat motor windings. He says he thought the technology would have been picked up faster in heat-sensitive wood or plastics applications. He calls UV-curing technology "an enabling technology. It allows you to do things you couldn't do before." Whereas drying a liquid-coated object in an oven might take several hours, radiation-curable coatings set in seven-tenths of a second. 'You can handle your product immediately," Elias says. Cytec Industries, a supplier of amino resins for conventional liquid coatings, also offers UV light absorbers for coatings. The company's triazine-based Cyasorb 1164 is now in use in conventional powder coatings to offer protection against paintfilmbreakdown for coated items exposed to strong light, says Michael T. McDonnell, Cytec general manager for specialty resins. According to Lubrizol's Dan Latas, manager of powder coating additives, the company offers surface modifiers for powder coatings. The company's Lanco TF 1830 allows the powder coating maker to offer a textured rough film instead of the high-gloss film normally associated with powder. Union Carbide is a full-line supplier of materials to paint and coatings formulators. But it has seen the writing on the wall. According to Neal A. Wyhs, director for solvents and intermediates, "VOC and HAP regulations continue to exert the most significant effect on solvent usage in paints and coatings. Union Carbide is committed to helping customers meet regulatory goals without sacrificing performance." Carbide also offers a 100% solids coating system that is an alternative to powder and radiation-curable coatings in industrial paint applications. According to
business director Duane F. Baumert, the The company licenses the systems to Unicarb system uses recycled carbon di- paint formulators and applicators. Given the variety of paint systems and oxide to replace solvents and water in coatings formulations. Benefits, he says, applications options, no one scheme ap"include improved coating quality, up to pears likely to substitute for high-solvent 85% reduction in VOC emissions com- liquid coatings. But options are available pared with conventional coatings, and a in many instances to satisfy regulators, 350% increase in parts coated per gallon." engineers, and consumers.^
'Caring' industry: Reality or facade? uring the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) European Chemical Industry's annual conference in Montreux, Switzerland, Oct. 3-4, top executives,financialadvisers, and business consultants tackled the thorny topic of the so-called triple bottom line—the financial, environmental, and social performance of the global economy. Discussions indicated a schism between large companies and smaller ones. Speakers from such larger companies as Dow Chemical and BP Amoco said industry had no choice but to learn how to work within the pressures ap-
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plied by environmental and societal demands, juggling those demands with thefinancialdemands of shareholders. Executives from smaller companies, on the other hand, privately voiced the counterpart to the often-heard argument that environmentalism is a luxury of a high standard of living. These executives recognized only their financial obligations to shareholders, dismissing other commitments as a luxury indulged in by the giants. Setting the stage, Bryan K. Sanderson, chairman of the SCI European Committee and chief executive officer of BP
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Amoco Chemicals, noted that "some groups believe the single-minded pursuit of shareholder value is inevitably damaging to the environment and to society. Within our industry, many take the view that we can be a positive force for good; others say large companies are now more effective than governments and have a moral and ethical responsibility to provide employment, for example." Sanderson's colleague Peter D. Sutherland, cochairman of BP Amoco and former director-general of the World Trade Organization, carried that argument further: "Sustainable development is, in part, about achieving high standards on not one bottom line, but three—measuring not merely on the economic, but also on environmental and social perspectives. This is not pious platitude." That strategy is not universally popular, he conceded, and "some companies may disagree. Stavropolous They may say that it's more important to focus on the shortterm rewards for the shareholders, and deal with the social and political fallout when it's absolutely necessary. However," he added, "given the expectations we now face, at BP Amoco we think the pursuit of short-term goals would be foolish. 'The concept of the triple bottom line introduces a political context—this is a new area for us in industry," Sutherland observed. "Business has increasingly been asked to exercise influence in a broader arena, and that means influencing governments. It is not the role of business to stand up and lecture governments, but it is appropriate for companies to point out to governments the impact of social or environmental policies on commerce, just as it is appropriate for companies to point out the impact of a fiscal policy on commerce." According to William S. Stavropoulos, president and CEO of Dow Chemical, global companies in the chemical industry "tnust satisfy all our constituents—our owners and investors, customers, employees, and communities—or we risk our ability to operate." Only by addressing all those constituents, he added, could the industry rebuild its credibility. A loss of credibility has been hurting the chemical industry: "Our lower multiples show investors 34
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have doubts about our ability to continue to grow and prosper." Stavropoulos posed four ways in which the industry could work toward its triple commitments. First, it must continue to build upon its safe and responsible production of chemicals, as supported by the Responsible Care ethos, setting "meaningful improvement goals" and telling the public of "either our success or our nonsuccess." Second, it must lead the way in testing the effects of the chemicals it produces. "We must establish ourselves as the authoritative source of data and information and we must do that now, but we also must ensure we look at sound science," he said. "We cannot concede this ground to groups arguing for the precautionary principle—if we do, we will see beneficial products removed from the market" Third, Stavropolous said the industry should establish partnerships: "We must reach out and do more collaborative work, especially with our critics. Working as partners, we can work on win-win solutions." Fourth, it must reposition itself. 'We must show we are integral to all these new industries such as electronics, and remind people of the benefits we bring to society, including the solutions to many problems," he said. For Chumpol NaLamlieng, president of Thailand's Siam Cement Public Co., 'The concern [in my country] is not how to escalate wealth, but how to escape poverty. Sustaining health and [coping with] the problems of aging are our prime concerns. The triple bottom line, in a way, is only of concern once a country has become developed." He described the environmental coverage that has been developed for Thailand's Map Ta Phut complex, developed on the Gulf of Thailand in the 1980s by the government The complex, Chumpol said, was planned with high environmental standards. "We learned from the lessons of the more developed economies," he said. "Thailand's then-new environmental law was a copy from the latest and best Of course, the authorities had no experience in interpreting or applying [the new regulations]. During the initial years, we had our share of difficulties with all the various supervising authori-
ties, before practical and uniform procedures were normalized." He added that the surrounding community "proved to be exceptionally tolerant of the rapid industrialization, as the new businesses brought wealth to the area." Chumpol pointed out one problem that has arisen, however. The continued expansion of the complex has resulted in a substantial increase in the population in the nearby area, which has begun encroaching into the green buffer zone surrounding the complex. "It is now apparent that the original planned green boundary areas for the complex will have to be expanded," he said. Matthew Arnold, senior vice president and chief operating officer of World Resources Institute, observed that "there is a new breed of environmentalists—we know what the imperatives are for businesses." The institute is a Washington, D.C.-based environmental lobbying group. He detailed some uncomfortable "myths" that, rightly or wrongly, environmental activists hold about industry. Among them are the beliefs that business is omnipotent—"We know you can do anything, so if you don't do it, it's because you obviously don't want to"— and that it has infinite resources to spend on solving problems. Increasingly, Arnold pointed out, industry is being expected to improve productivity "by a factor of 10" to support or improve the overall standard of living even while the world's population is increasing. And he suggested that, increasingly, industry executives are being marginalized in debates on many public issues, such as carbon dioxide generation and global warming. "In a way," Arnold said, "it doesn't matter if you believe it or not. A large number of Nobel Laureates do. A large number of politicians do. It doesn't matter if you do." Arnold also offered two basic suggestions for working with environmental activists. Companies could "enlist their help," he suggested. 'Toss the question back to them: This is what we are trying to do. You don't like what we are doing? Show us how to do it better' " (C&EN, Sept. 13, page 22). Companies should also "publicize failures," he added. "Invite people to understand the difficulties in doing what some of your stakeholders are asking you to do. That has been a very effective way to educate us environmentalists." Patricia Layman
