Our Products
We work proactively to improve sustainability in our product formulations and packaging. With our product lines, customers can promote energy efficiency, reduce landfill waste, extend the useful life of, renew and reuse products in addition to supporting the use of bio-based chemistries.
Sustainably Advantaged Products
We work to develop more sustainable product formulations, reduce excess product packaging and produce many products that have a direct environmental benefit by reducing waste, energy usage or emissions.
Building a Better World also encompasses our desire to help our customers and end-users achieve their own sustainability goals. We develop product lines designed to extend the useful life of products for consumer, industrial and specialty markets focused on restoration and maintenance.
Energy Efficient Products
Our sealants, weatherization, roofing and building products make buildings more energy efficient, which helps our customers reduce their energy use and GHG emissions.
Tremco CPG creates roof coating products that enable reduced energy consumption in the buildings to which they are applied, compared to traditional roofing materials. “Cool roof” coatings such as our AlphaGuard line of products reduce the heat island effect and enhance the ability of buildings to regulate temperature, leading to more efficient energy usage and a reduction in GHG emissions.
Tremco CPG SG200, SG300, SG555 and Tremglaze50 silicone sealants hold Low Carbon Footprint Certification by the South Korean Government’s Ministry of Environment, meeting South Korea’s green building requirements for construction of new commercial buildings. The lifecycle of these sealants also produces fewer GHG emissions than products of the same category.
Carboline provides coatings for the power industry, including renewable energy markets. Carboline’s coatings for wind turbine blades provide long-term protection against high-temperature and extreme atmospheric environments, including harsh weather.
Euclid Chemical’s TUF-STRAND SF is a fiber designed to replace energy-intensive materials such as conventional metal reinforcing bars (rebar) in a wide variety of building applications. When used in concrete, Tuf-Strand SF fibers promote higher infrastructure durability and safer working environments while reducing or eliminating the need for rebar — a material that can negatively impact the environment.
Insulated Concrete Forms (ICFs) provide superior energy efficiency of up to 50% by lowering utility costs versus traditional building methods such as wood, and provide strength, safety and durability against extreme weather conditions. When used in green building projects, Nudura’s ICFs can provide project credits within the LEED Green Building Rating System.
AlphaGuard™ BIO is a two-component, bio-based solution that can be used to restore roofs and can lower rooftop temperatures, which helps moderate building temperatures, improve occupant comfort and cut down on energy use. The product makes roofs easier to maintain and repair and is designed for durability, supporting long-term sustainability.
Reduce Landfill Use
RPM continues to strive to increase the use of recycled content in packaging, including the use of packaging containing post-consumer plastics.
In 2021, Rust-Oleum converted approximately 6 million cans to post-consumer recycled (PCR), plastic cans. This packaging optimization simplifies the recycling process, which should result in less waste downstream.
Our primary corrugated packaging provider is certified to multiple fiber sustainability standards and uses virgin and recycled fibers in packaging supplied to RPM. Our other corrugated and fiberboard product suppliers also use recycled content, including in cartridges and kraft bags.
Stonhard uses fill and seal packaging instead of rigid metal packaging, reducing jobsite waste from cubic yards to cubic feet, enabling near complete use of the product and reducing product contamination in the waste and recycling stream. The switch in packaging reduced end-user waste by 99%.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency named our Krud Kutter line of cleaning products as a 2021 Safer Choice Partner of the Year. Krud Kutter earned this recognition by increasing its offering of Safer Choice-certified products by 9% and focusing on using concentrates and refillable bottles to reduce plastic use and emissions.
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DAP has reformulated certain two-component foam products to incorporate a new environmentally friendly hydrofluoro-olefin (HFO) liquid blowing agent. The building insulating foam is 99.9% lower in hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) than comparable industry products while making the building more energy efficient by sealing leaks and adding insulation.
Renew and Reuse Products
We regularly evaluate opportunities to reduce materials that could be potentially hazardous to end-users or our associates. The reduction and elimination of chemicals of concern (COCs), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) and integration of more bio-based chemistries benefits the environment and allows us to innovate and evolve our product offerings.
Bio-Based Products
Kop-Coat and AGPRO produce adjuvants that increase crop yields and can help reduce the use of pesticides by 25 to 50%. The bio-based formulas are being used to help reforestation efforts in the western United States by growing young trees and expanding carbon sequestration projects. Kop-Coat also offers products that extend the life of wood used in buildings for the service life of the structures, offsetting the demand for resource-intense steel while helping prevent damage from rot and insects.
In 2021, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) named Tremco Roofing & Building Maintenance a BioPreferred Program Pioneer. The USDA program, which promotes products derived from plants and other agricultural, marine and forestry materials, recognized five Tremco Roofing products to carry the BioPreferred label:
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Tremco CPG’s program, Power of One, was created to address the “six sides” of a building by restoring roofs, facades, decks and foundations. Roofs that are dried, repaired, cleaned and restored with a reflective surface keep materials out of landfills, reduce energy use and keep buildings watertight. Vegetated roofs reduce wastewater discharge and rooftop surface temperatures. Similarly, façade restoration saves energy, does not displace residents during the enhancement and uses materials that are increasingly bio-based and produced in ISO 14000- certified facilities.
The Deep Energy Retrofit program exemplifies Tremco CPG’s Power of One by making housing more energy efficient and reducing residents’ utility bills. Through the program, panelized facades are installed over existing exteriors in multi-tenant buildings. All projects in California, Massachusetts and New York require participating companies to employ a certain percentage of low-income residents living in the structures being renovated, giving residents career skills and contributing to more resilient communities.
Research, Development & Innovation
Sustainability-related innovation is embedded in our culture. From creating resilient coatings for wind turbine blades to reformulating products with bio-based materials, our investment in innovation reflects our commitment to sustainability and meeting the challenges of climate change. We aim to advance our products ahead of regulatory changes and truly integrate sustainable solutions into our Building a Better World strategy.
At RPM, the leaders of the research and development (R&D) departments for our businesses are responsible for the management of innovation. We seek to center-lead sustainable product development initiatives through the establishment of our Building a Better World Sustainable Products Subcommittee, comprised of these leaders. This Subcommittee reports to the Building a Better World Oversight Committee.
RPM also provides formal and informal incentives to associates for creating, implementing and using more sustainable products and processes. We promote the sharing of best practices and innovative ideas among our companies through our Connections Creating Value program.
R&D Symposiums
RPM hosted its first global R&D Symposium in 2020. Technical presentations and educational sessions focused on nearly 100 product innovation opportunities and 350 new ideas resulted from the Symposium. We created seven innovation platforms that help drive sustainable development throughout the organization:
The RPM R&D Symposium in 2021 expanded our mission with the theme “Building a Better World: Connect, Ideate and Create.” Committees meet quarterly to make progress on the Innovation Platforms and periodically report results to our four Group presidents and the Chair of our Building a Better World Oversight Committee.
The R&D innovation platform projects have a shared goal of creating safer and more sustainable products and processes. Our researchers actively work to create products that last longer, prevent damage, use fewer chemicals of concern, promote health and safety and are less harmful to people and the environment.
Recycling And Reuse
DayGlo upcycles post-industrial polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a waste product left over from the production of plastic containers such as soda and salad dressing bottles, and grinds it down for use in their ECO Pigment line, which contains upwards of 26% recycled plastic.
Tremco CPG Korea partners upstream and downstream with our suppliers and industrial customers to reuse and recycle materials.
Stonhard’s Epoplex highway line-striping customers are encouraged to participate in our Intermediate Bulk Container (IBC) pickup program with our IBC tote supplier, which picks up the used totes from customer locations and recycles the steel cages for reuse. In 2021, more than 2,000 totes were picked up for recycling.
At Stonhard’s New Jersey manufacturing facilities, IBCs are sent to reclamation centers to be washed and reconditioned for reuse by the supplier. Since the program’s inception in 2012, Stonhard has avoided landfill disposal of approximately 1,700 IBC totes per year.
Waste Solutions
RPM works to implement creative waste reduction solutions in and through the use of its products. The purpose and formulation of many of Tremco CPG’s products prioritize recycled inputs and reduce lifecycle impacts. Their approach of “Keeping Good Roofs Good” – restoring aging but functional roofs with liquid-applied roofing systems – keeps tons of material out of stressed landfills each year.
VerdeCoat® is helping to drive the food industry’s movement from plastic to paper-based packaging. These high-performance barrier coatings are all free from polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and can be repulpable, recyclable, or certified compostable for sustainable paper-based food packaging.
Through projects such as the American Coatings Association’s (ACA) PaintCare Program, we promote the extension of our paint products’ lifecycles. RPM participates in this program to help our customers recycle paint easily and safely, leveraging its more than 200 local waste collection facilities across the United States. More than 50 million gallons of post-consumer architectural paint have been collected to date.
Legend Brands recently developed an eco-conscious cleaning product line branded “Goodbye,” which features six different natural, plant-based products for home cleaning. These products are hypoallergenic, free from formaldehyde and dyes, and biodegradable. The entire product line is available on Amazon.com.
Consumer Safety
Our Consumer Group’s R&D teams are working toward developing more water-based technologies and safer product alternatives. We strive to make our products as safe and environmentally friendly as possible for both consumers and associates working in our facilities.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency named our Krud Kutter line of cleaning products as a 2021 Safer Choice Partner of the Year. Krud Kutter earned this recognition by increasing its offering of Safer Choice-certified products by 9% and focusing on using concentrates and refillable bottles to reduce plastic use and emissions.
When hazardous wastes are spilled, one of the greatest dangers to people is the spread of pollutants into drinking water sources. Prime Resins’ SoiLok system seals off the soil and holds contamination in one place, preventing the waste from making its way into drinking water sources.