In today’s society we need to take care of tomorrow. After all, our dependency on fossil fuels is putting increasing strain on the earth’s resources. The continued increase in greenhouse-gas emissions is leading to growing concern about the environment.

With the continued growth of the emerging economies, it will be a challenge to balance the population growth combined with higher standards of living in these countries with lower emissions on a global scale.

A growing and aging world population increases the need for health and wellness products. At the same time, a more connected society is asking for new functionalities – products that are faster, lighter and easier to use.

Addressing all these issues makes innovation more important than ever. Innovation requires creativity, the ability to think ‘out of the box’ to come up with new solutions that help to improve the quality of life and make the world more sustainable. The future is for us to make, today.

The western world is being confronted with a rapid increase in diseases and disorders such as obesity, cardiovascular disorders and diabetes, which are connected with modern lifestyle patterns. Close to 80% of medicines used today serve to combat diseases that are related to nutrition and lifestyle.

Demand for innovative food and food ingredients is growing, as consumers are increasingly paying attention to their daily diets and are turning to foods with certain functionalities. In personal care, too, consumers are placing ever higher demands on the health and beauty effects of products.

At the same time, many developing countries are facing health issues related to the daily diet of their population. Staple foods in these countries are poor in micronutrients, such as vitamins and minerals. It is widely acknowledged that this ‘hidden hunger’ is holding back the development of these countries.

Meeting the rapidly growing demand for protein-rich diets requires feed ingredients that foster animal growth and reduce the ecological impact of animal farming, while at the same time safeguarding the health of both the farmed animal and the ultimate human consumer. The need to replace conventional growth promoters in animal feed calls for innovation in feed ingredients.

All this calls for sophisticated ingredients from manufacturers with expertise in the safety, quality and traceability of the ingredients they supply.

For the pharmaceutical industry, too, the supply of innovative and reliable ingredients is key. Growth in this industry is driven by technological advancements and demographics. Life expectancy has grown in the western world. In the emerging economies, population is rising fast, while life expectancy is also on the rise thanks to a higher standard of living.

However, our longevity and improved health and well-being come at a steep price. Spending on healthcare and pharmaceuticals is growing exponentially. There is increased pressure on the pharmaceutical industry not only to contain costs but also to continue delivering new medicines in order to maintain earnings growth. In this industry reliable, experienced partners for outsourcing are in high demand.

However, while pharmaceutical companies’ expenditure on research and development (R&D) has increased in recent years, R&D productivity has declined. In order to improve their development pipelines, these companies are increasingly looking for new opportunities, for instance in biopharmaceuticals.

Biological drugs such as proteins and monoclonal antibodies, produced with living cells are a fast growing and very promising area with many possibilities to deal with diseases which cannot be addressed by conventional drugs. More research needs to be done to improve the yields for these new, still relatively expensive, drugs.

Based on a growing understanding of the impact of nutrition on physical and mental health as well as well-being, there is an increasing belief that the current clear distinction between pharmaceuticals and nutrition will diminish in the longer term.

Individualization and global networking characterize today’s society. With the rapid advancement of technology and higher standards of living in emerging markets, more and more products are finding their way to an ever-faster growing group of consumers.

Products such as MP3 players, mobile phones and handheld computers are not only finding increasing usage, but are also starting to converge, incorporating more functionality.

Environmental concerns and worries about climate change call for new, advanced and ‘green’ materials with superior properties. In cars for instance, some metal parts such as trunks can be replaced by composite resins, helping to reduce weight resulting in lower fuel consumption.

The electronics industry is on the look-out for new engineering plastics to deal with the ongoing miniaturization trend, among other things; the automotive sector is searching for lighter and stronger materials to reduce energy use and CO_² emissions. The building and construction sectors require advanced materials, partly to replace conventional materials such as steel.

In the paints and coatings industry, there is increasing demand – partly due to stricter regulations – for waterborne products that do not contain harmful solvents. The trend that calls for more durable and more eco-friendly solutions is also visible in packaging.

Also, people are becoming more concerned about their personal safety, which increases the need for lightweight materials to protect both people and their transport means.

In short, performance materials need to be better and stronger. Stronger, because this means that less material is needed to deliver the same performance. And less material means a smaller eco-footprint in both production and use. It also means less overall costs thanks to increased durability.

As demand for materials from alternative sources increases, biotechnology is having an increasing impact on the world of materials. This results in biodegradable and biorenewable materials, such as biopolymers, to be used in for example biomedical and packaging applications.

Apart from the increased popularity of so-called hybrid cars, biofuels are increasingly considered as an alternative to traditional fuels. Especially the so-called second generation, which is not competing with crops that can also be used for food consumption, could very well be a viable alternative to fossil fuels. This second generation allows the use of a much wider range of raw materials, with less impact on the food chain. They are also more environmentally friendly.

Also, materials are increasingly applied in medical applications. This opens a new emerging field of biomedical materials. These will play a key role in enabling medical breakthroughs in healthcare, such as the introduction of drug-eluting materials.

Although today’s society appears to have many problems, at the same time new solutions are on the horizon. Dedication to innovation and research and an open mind to new technological developments can help in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions and providing a better quality of life, now and in the future.