Bostik’s Internal Portfolio Sustainability Assessment | Bostik Blog

As manufacturers, you have certain expectations of your suppliers regarding the sustainability of their products. As a part of Arkema, Bostik uses Archimedes, a portfolio sustainability assessment tool, to ensure we can help you meet your current and future goals, and those of your consumers.

“To build a world where nine billion people are living well and within the boundaries of the planet, by 2050”

That’s the vision of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), and one we share with many other companies. Yours may even be one of them.

A key component in achieving this goal is the Portfolio Sustainability Assessment (PSA), championed and outlined by the WBCSD. At Bostik, we use Archimedes, a PSA tool crafted by Arkema.¹ Archimedes holds us accountable to the environmentally and socially responsible goals of customers like you and the communities in which we operate.

What is a Portfolio Sustainability Assessment

If you ask stakeholders about the progress companies are making toward sustainability, you may encounter the opinion that it is dishearteningly low. For manufacturers, such a perception can affect both trust in the company and product sales. However, businesses can rely on solid figures to present a true, accurate story about progress being made.

PSAs provide value through reporting to stakeholders and enabling clearer decision making in key areas such as:

Shaping the future of the company (how it will look in 10 years)
Aligning with key market trends
Providing positive impact on United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

As a side benefit, PSAs also aid in creating and tracking a variety of key performance indicators (KPIs).

The Key Principles of PSAs

The assessment should be well-defined, fact-based, and comprehensive. A strong PSA is also consistent, relevant across regions and across applications.

Creating a sustainability assessment utilizing the WBCSD’s framework includes:

Defining objectives, scope, and methods
Defining assessment segments
Detecting market signals
Categorizing the portfolio
Reporting to stakeholders
Using PSA results to refine future actions

Demonstrated Benefits of PSAs

After employing a portfolio sustainability assessment, WBCSD member companies have reported many positive results.² They have included:

Better decisions and more thorough strategies
Higher growth rate of more sustainable solutions
Credible communication on socially responsible benefits
Stronger customer and stakeholder relationships
Reduced risks
Improved corporate image

Many of these have positive effects for customers like you in both the absorbent hygiene and packaging industries. Not only can these decisions help to reduce your own carbon footprint, but they can also help satisfy consumer expectations.

Archimedes: A Portfolio Sustainability Assessment Tool

When buying Bostik adhesives, you need to know the environmental impact of our hot melts and their effect on your total products and packaging. It is also a key prerequisite of our PSA, which we’ve named Archimedes, after the classical mathematician, physicist, inventor, and engineer.

We began by defining our objectives and scope, which included a full 95% of our products and services. The next step was segmentation.

Creating Meaningful Segments

For the PSA to have value for stakeholders like you, it needs to consider each product or service in the context of its supply chain and region. At the same time, effectively grouping similar items into segments helps to reduce complexity of the process.

Under Archimedes, we identified numerous segments. Among them are the hot-melt adhesives used for baby diapers, period care, and adult incontinence products. Also included are the hot melts used for end-of-line packaging and shipping of fast-moving consumer goods.

Factors used to shape these groupings included:

Regulatory constraints and trends
Consumer perception
Market trends

Pinpointing Key Market Signals

WBCSD defines the next step in the PSA as “identification of material, environmental, and social challenges and opportunities related to each assessment segment.” This step’s goal is to represent the perspectives of different stakeholders, as relevant to the segment.

One benefit of this methodology is to afford an outside-in view of our performance and progress and benefits for our customers and other stakeholders. Some of the signals we considered, where appropriate, were:

Chemical hazards and exposure across the life cycle
Sustainable value creation
Company internal guidelines and objectives
Anticipated regulatory trends
Socially responsible ambitions along the value chain
Market trends
Environmental, social, and technical performance across the product’s life cycle
Contribution to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

These signals can have great value in helping to reduce the environmental and societal impact throughout the value chain.

Categorizing the Portfolio

Evaluating all signals identified in the PSA allows us to combine and assess performance at the portfolio level. We then determine how positive or negative the effects are for our stakeholders. In short, we grade the impact of our products and performance in each overall category.

Reporting and Using the Results

After distinguishing the areas in the greatest need of change, the next step is to harness that information throughout all key decision-making processes. This includes:

Risk and opportunity identification
Strategy development and review
Project and innovation management
Capital expenditure decisions
Mergers and acquisitions
Sales planning
Customer co-development projects to better meet your specific needs

Using Archimedes, we create decision trees to help us navigate through many factors and find our right path toward improved sustainability.

How Archimedes Helps You: A Summary

When selecting a Bostik adhesive for your absorbent hygiene, product packaging, and shipping needs, you can rely on our dedication to improving our impacts for the environment, the economy, and the communities we help you serve.

To that end, our roll-out of Archimedes included:

Each business line you rely on
All functions within the company
Coordination with Arkema corporate

Its major benefits allowed us to:

Identify risks and opportunities for ourselves and our customers
Anticipate trends
Accelerate a culture of corporate social responsibility
Steer our portfolio
Shape our long-term vision

Key factors of the PSA contributing to successfully benefitting our customers were:

Investing time and resources in the process
Making this evaluation:
- Pragmatic
- Robust
- Visible
- Tangible
- Verifiable

By evaluating numerous categories such as greenhouse gas emissions, environmental footprint, and the use of natural resources, as well as economic and societal impacts, Bostik, along with the rest of Arkema, tracks our progress toward achieving long-term, socially responsible goals as a supplier and a fellow corporate citizen. These insights also help us report our progress and successes to you and other stakeholders to aid in your own decision making.

A Partner on the Path to Greater Sustainability

As you work toward reducing negative impacts of your products and processes, choose a partner who understands these goals. Our teams stand ready to assist with bringing your innovations to life and to the market, while meeting your overall performance objectives. Contact us early in your design process for the greatest efficiency. Together we can pave the way to more sustainable absorbent hygiene products, packaging, and beyond.

To learn more about our socially responsible goals and actions in the many industries we serve, read “We Are Sustainability Enablers.”

CONTACT US TODAY!

¹ Arkema is a French leader in the chemicals industry, and Bostik is its adhesive solutions division.

² WBCSD, “Building Trust: Assurance of Portfolio Assessments”

All information contained herein is believed to be accurate as of the date of publication, is provided “as-is” and is subject to change without notice. To review our full U.S. Legal Disclaimer, visit: https://bostik.com/us/en_US/privacy-policy/legal-disclaimer

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How You Benefit from Bostik’s Internal Portfolio Sustainability Assessment