Stringent environmental requirements are driving the growth of bio-based inks and coatings

Source: Biseng.com

With the increasingly strict environmental requirements, green printing supplies market is rapidly accelerating development. The market for this growth category is expected to be worth $5.86 billion globally by 2021, according to the latest report "The Future of Bio-based Inks and Coatings to 2026" published by Smithers. Smithers identifies a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.90 per cent, with a projected value of $8.57bn by 2026.

The market for traditional print products, such as publishing, continues to decline as electronic communications replace print. Losses here will be offset by increases in packaging and reformulations of inks and coatings.

challenge

There are still many challenges to be addressed before bio-based inks and coatings can emerge from their infancy and enter mainstream adoption, as they have in today's declining publishing market. One challenge is the availability of bio-based raw materials. The most widely used are solvents. But with certification programs encouraging higher percentages of biologically-based content, and some products launched claiming percentages in excess of 80%, solvents alone are not enough to meet the standard, especially those that need to be updated and push manufacturers to keep improving.

Trends in bio-based inks and coatings

The variety of non-petroleum solvents available for printing inks is also increasing to meet the growing environmental needs. This includes soy, palm, sunflower, rapeseed, vegetable oil or ethanol. For resins, bio-based options include environmentally friendly acrylics, polyurethanes and polyamides. The palette of bio-based pigments features dark pigments derived from algae or wood instead of carbon black. Each source material presents its own technical challenges in matching the performance parameters of existing petroleum-derived solutions, such as quality and operationability. To meet this demand, research and development activities are increasing and ink suppliers are adjusting their product portfolios to the COVID-19 reconfigured printing environment.

Market-leading regulation

Efforts to reduce volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are continuing in every major region of the world, with legislative action to reduce VOCs and greenhouse gas emissions. The evolving regulatory environment for new ink ingredients and sustainability includes the EU's strategy to make all chemicals sustainable by design. It is also about procurement resilience, as disrupted supply chains must fundamentally adapt to the post-COVID economy.

As a long-time proponent of sustainable development initiatives, Europe reaffirmed its commitment in December 2020, when eu member state leaders adopted a commitment to reduce carbon emissions by 55% by 2030, while continuing the larger commitment to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 agreed in the 2015 UN Paris Agreement.

In 2015, China took the lead in carrying out its first major reform of environmental protection policies. As the largest market for printing inks and coatings, as well as packaging, this is in many ways a key driver for companies to place greater emphasis on sustainability. Asia Pacific is the largest packaging producer and will lead the way in the use of bio-based inks and coatings. With the development of water-based and bio-based technologies, China will be the focus to meet regulatory limits on volatile organic compounds and carbon emissions.

As the new administration rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement, the United States also reaffirmed its commitment to sustainable development in January 2021.

Market application

Packaging remains the biggest market application - bio-based flexible inks using innovative green materials, such as nitrocellulose, are already on the market. As corporate sustainability targets and government regulations expand to minimize the carbon impact of multiple business processes, opportunities for parallel publications and graphic work are increasing.