Achieving more with less: Resource efficiency is a megatrend but also a challenge—and the Resource Efficiency Segment is helping entire industries achieve it by reinventing themselves. The segment’s nine business lines provide customized solutions for industrial customers that want to manufacture goods more efficiently or help achieve greater sustainability through their products. This need is animating numerous markets, and as a result the segment has a broadly conceived structure.

For example, products from Resource Efficiency make cars lighter, thus helping to save fuel. Lightweight construction materials are replacing metal components in car bodies, chassis, interiors, and engines. Products from this segment also improve the resilience and sustainability of paints. They also help to improve the latest generation of low rolling resistance tires, which can cut fuel consumption by as much as eight percent. Products from Resource Efficiency are also used in the construction of new buildings and the energy-oriented renovation of old ones. These products ensure a long service life and resource savings.

A key contributor to this success is the smooth interaction of the employees in research, applications technology, and production along with marketing and sales, which makes it possible to achieve breakthroughs in core markets and open up new markets. That’s why the segment’s growth strategy calls for investments in core business areas, growth projects, and acquisitions.