Nicole Graf
BASF SE
Senior Marketing Manager Home Care and I&I Solutions Europe, Germany

Abstract

The I&I industry moves towards a circular economy. 
There is no single future trend which doesn’t perfectly fit into the concept of a circular economy, be it saving resources, keeping cleaned items longer in use or optimization of cleaning processes. 
Also, the growing degree of digitalization of the industrial and institutional cleaning industry (I&I) supports this development. Since industrial cleaning machines have a high degree of flexibility, in contrast to the home care sector, such innovations can be directly implemented. BASF Home Care and I&I Cleaning Solutions Europe supports its customers in closing the loops and optimally using products as well as resources along the value chain.

Increasing public awareness for sustainability has led to greater significance of the circular economy model in politics and industry in recent years. The shift is moving away from a linear economic model produce, use, dispose and toward a system with closed loops, in which resources are used as efficiently as possible. With the topic of circular economy, however, hardly anyone would initially think of the washing and cleaning processes. In fact, the sustainable usage of resources has already been the decisive sales argument in the I&I industry for quite some time now: How can production be made more efficient? Which sustainable solutions exist for detergents and cleaning agents? How can ingredients and materials be recycled? Since industrial cleaning machines have a high degree of flexibility, in contrast to the home care sector, such innovations can be directly implemented. BASF Home Care and I&I Cleaning Solutions Europe supports its customers in closing the loops and optimally using products as well as resources along the value chain. The circular economy model requires fundamental changes with respect to behavior and the use of technology.

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