Designing Low-Carbon Footprint Coatings: Sustainability Optimization from Day One

Abstract

Sustainability is becoming a core requirement in the development of coatings, paints, and inks. Whether you’re developing architectural paints, industrial coatings, or any other formulation in the field, environmental impact is now a design parameter alongside cost, performance, and regulatory compliance.

This shift is driven by a wave of new sustainability regulations emerging across the globe. In the EU, frameworks such as the European Green Deal, Product Environmental Footprint (PEF), and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) are pushing manufacturers to quantify, report, and reduce carbon emissions across the product lifecycle, backed by a proposed target to cut the EU’s net greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2040 (relative to 1990 levels). In the U.S., the SEC Climate Disclosure Rule introduces similar obligations for public companies, requiring emissions transparency across supply chains. In Latin America, Brazil’s National Policy on Solid Waste and voluntary carbon programs are shaping how companies approach raw materials and environmental impact. And beyond these regions, many other national and industry-specific regulations are accelerating the need for transparent, low-carbon formulation strategies worldwide.

These policies, combined with rising customer expectations and stricter ecolabel requirements, mean sustainability must be built into the formulation process—not checked at the end.

With MaterialsZone, R&D teams can now integrate sustainability into every stage of product development. Our platform centralizes emissions and compliance data, automates carbon footprint calculations, supports smart material selection, and powers AI-guided optimization, so chemists can make informed decisions that balance cost, performance, compliance, and environmental impact, powered by integrated data, automation, and AI. For forward-looking manufacturers, these shifts present not only a regulatory obligation, but also an opportunity to lead through sustainability-focused innovation.

The Challenge: Bringing Emissions into Formulation Strategy

Traditionally, formulation chemists have focused on balancing product performance—like viscosity, hardness, and drying time—against cost and internal specs. But today, they also face growing pressure to:

• Reduce product carbon footprint (PCF), often without full visibility into the emissions data behind each ingredient
• Ensure compliance with evolving regulations (e.g., VOC limits, hazardous substance restrictions, EPD readiness)
• Report on carbon footprint at the product level to meet rising customer and market expectations
• Manually gather data from disparate sources, such as technical data sheets (PDFs), supplier declarations, or outdated spreadsheets
• Balance sustainability with performance in already complex formulations

These demands often fall outside traditional tools and workflows, slowing progress and limiting innovation. In addition to global disclosure frameworks like the CSRD and the SEC rule, industry-specific regulations such as REACH, RoHS, and California’s Proposition 65 are introducing stricter limits on hazardous substances and chemicals of concern. These compliance requirements are compelling coatings manufacturers to rethink materials, replace restricted additives, and proactively reformulate to meet regulatory standards across multiple markets.

Centralizing Carbon Data for Smarter Formulation Decisions

Instead of chasing emissions data across disparate sources, MaterialsZone lets teams harmonize all sustainability metrics—including carbon factors, supplier profiles, and regional guidelines—into one structured, searchable Materials Knowledge Center. Each raw material record includes its emission factor, VOC contribution, cost data, as well as other relevant properties. All this data is then linked and calculated for formulations and production batches that include that material. This unified view enables teams to identify and compare materials not only based on performance, but also on carbon footprint and compliance readiness.

Designing to Compliance with AI-Guided Optimization

With MaterialsZone’s Predictive Co-Pilot, sustainability and compliance goals become part of the design process. Formulation chemists can define precise targets across multiple dimensions, not just cost and performance, but also environmental and regulatory constraints. The platform powers smart material selection by recommending ingredient combinations that minimize emissions, meet compliance criteria, and proactively adapt to changing regulations, enabling faster, more informed formulation decisions.

For example, a team might aim to keep cost below $20 per kg, limit the carbon footprint to under 30 kg CO₂e per kg of product, and maintain hardness above 100 seconds, all while staying within VOC or other regional pollutant thresholds. With MaterialsZone, users simply define these targets in the system, specify whether each one should be minimized or maximized, set a threshold value accordingly, and assign weights to reflect their relative importance. The platform then explores high-performance, compliant formulations that best satisfy the defined constraints.

Exploring Formulation Behavior with Predictive Modeling

Beyond optimization, teams often want to explore “what-if” scenarios, such as how increasing the proportion of a specific resin will affect haze or hardness. MaterialsZone supports this through its Predictive Columns capability, allowing scientists to simulate the impact of formulation changes in real time.

By using AI models trained on the customer’s historical experimental data, formulators can test hypothetical inputs and immediately visualize how outputs such as viscosity, VOC, or carbon footprint might change. This interactive modeling allows teams to ask better questions earlier in the process and fine-tune recipes before committing to physical testing.

The experience is enhanced with MaterialsZone’s Visual Analyzer, which helps researchers interpret results across multiple parameters and quickly spot trade-offs or unexpected effects.

Quantified Impact and Strategic Value

By embedding sustainability into the design phase, companies achieve:

• Up to 50% fewer iterations to hit cost, performance, and carbon targets
• Real-time carbon footprint updates as formulations evolve
• 20–40% time savings in regulatory and compliance reporting
• Hundreds of hours saved annually on carbon footprint calculation and reporting
• Streamlined collaboration between regulatory, procurement, and R&D teams through the platform’s Collaboration Hub, enabling real-time alignment across departments

Smarter Formulations. Greener Outcomes.

With MaterialsZone, sustainability becomes part of your everyday workflow—not an afterthought. By aligning emissions data with your formulation and product development process, your team can design high-performing, low-carbon coatings with confidence and speed. And with real-time insights at their fingertips, teams can turn sustainability into a competitive advantage.