Greener Materials and the Markets That Use Them

By Bob Brothers

"Greener Materials and the Markets that Use Them" provides a comprehensive overview of the products, raw materials, and end users that are leading a transformation to a 'greener' more environmentaly friendly America.

Claims about environmentally friendly products and initiatives fall into four buckets.

Renewable raw materials are derived from plant or animal sources.
Biologically-based processes, such as fermentation, transform raw materials into intermediate or finished products.

Recyclable, compostable or bio-degradable materials minimize products’ end-of-life impact by reducing demand for virgin polymers and thus the energy and feedstocks needed to make them, by reducing trash or litter, and by lowering landfill loads.

Energy efficiency, waste reduction, supply chain management, and operating excellence reduce any product’s cradle-to-grave carbon footprint.

Each of these buckets is undergoing intensive R&D, new product development, and new business creation – along with a fair degree of public and regulatory interest.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bob Brothers
• Release date: Feb 17, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458146533

Bob Brothers

Bob Brothers, principal of the management consultancy Marketing Intelligence & Strategy Associates, is a creative, forward thinking marketing and business strategy professional. Bob earned deep, hands-on marketing research and business development expertise as an independent consultant and as a marketing research and new business development leader with global consumer and industrial products companies, Eastman Chemical and DuPont. He has achieved notable successes ... * Creating and executing new business and market development strategies, successfully introducing new products and entering new, untested markets. * Planning and executing complex marketing research programs, formulating valuable insights and recommendations, and collaborating with business leaders to implement results. * Leading high performance teams and building global marketing capabilities and marketing research competence Bob expertise centers around high performance and specialty materials, the industries that transform them, and the consumers who use them. Bob hold a BS in Chemical Engineering from University of Texas (Austin) and MS in Chemical and Petroleum Engineering from Kansas University. Bob’s global consulting practice, Marketing Intelligence & Strategy, is headquartered in Austin, Texas, where he lives and writes.

Book preview

Greener Materials and the Markets that Use Them

Bob Brothers

Copyright Robert C Brothers 2011

Smashwords Edition

ISBN 978-1-4581-4653-3

Smashwords Edition, License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 - Executive Summary

Chapter 2 - What it Means to Be Green

The Regulatory Environment

Measuring Green-ness

What do consumers think of green?

Chapter 3 - Green Products and Processes

Materials from plant or animal sources

Materials from Bio-based Processes

Recyclable, compostable, and biodegradable polymers

Chapter 4 - Markets for Green Materials

Transportation Sector

Building and Construction Sector

Food and Beverage Industry

Paint and Coatings Industry

Miscellaneous Markets

Basic Chemicals

Chapter 5 - Profiting from Green Materials

Business Strategies for Green Profits

Chapter 6 - A Note on Scope and Methodology

Chapter 7 - About the Author

Introduction

We hear a lot of discussion of concepts like ‘sustainable’, ‘renewable’, ‘green’ and ‘environmentally friendly’, but it’s often not entirely clear what those terms actually mean. Much of it is a serious, conscientious effort to explain and reduce the impact we have on our environment, but an unfortunate minority is hype and mis-direction, with minimal grounding in fact.

Problem is that there are no generally accepted definitions of just what products and practices are ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’ or ‘environmentally friendly’ and which are not – little agreement, in fact, about what those words actually mean. There’s little guidance for developing and presenting evidence of ‘green-ness’, and only the loosest scrutiny of how the terms are used or of the claims that advertisers make.

Greener Materials and the Markets that Use Them is an attempt to bring a bit of order and objectivity to the range of ‘green’ related topics that seem to sow confusion and dissatisfaction among users of traditional chemicals and plastics and of the ‘greener’ materials promoted as their more environmentally responsible replacements.

In researching this book, I found myself classifying claims for environmentally friendly products and initiatives into four ‘green’ buckets:

Renewable raw materials, derived from ‘natural’ (that is, plant or animal) sources

Biologically-based processes for transforming raw materials (usually from renewable sources) into intermediate or finished products

Recyclable, compostable or bio-degradable materials to minimize products’ end-of-life impact

Energy efficiency and waste reduction, through process design, supply chain management, and operating excellence to reduce a product’s cradle-to-grave carbon footprint

Each of these buckets is undergoing intensive debate, R&D, new product development, and new business creation – along with a fair degree of public and regulatory interest. And along the way, I was surprised to learn just what a long and important list of traditional products fall into one or more of these buckets:

In "Greener Materials and the