The Packaging Coatings business within our Performance Coatings Group is taking a lead role in implementing a formalized approach to the Sustainability by Design program, which fully integrates a sustainability mindset into key steps in our innovation and product development process.

“While sustainability has long been a factor in our new product development, this comprehensive approach to Sustainability by Design makes it a core consideration from the beginning, in a systematic way,” said Chris Piazza, Sherwin-Williams R&D Director for the Performance Coatings Group. “We are going to drive sustainable innovation by providing more tools and including new perspectives from within the business and across the Company.”

The Performance Coatings Group is a natural fit for the Sustainability by Design process because of its success in recent years with its Safety by Design program, which focuses on designing out health and safety risks rather than trying to mitigate them after a product or process design is completed.

The Packaging Coatings team expects to make the most impact in the early stages of the product development and design process. This effort will be enabled by providing additional tools, such as enhanced life cycle assessment capabilities and key questions, criteria and milestones to guide decision-making.

This is an interdepartmental effort, with sustainability team members working alongside their colleagues in technical, operations, supply chain, sales, marketing and finance. The team expects to identify significant opportunities to make sustainability improvements in raw material usage, formulations, durability of products, differentiation in the marketplace and other areas. The intention is that Packaging Coatings will be able to increase its portfolio of “sustainably advantaged products.”