Sustainability
The world’s resources are limited, and its ecosystem is fragile. That’s why the global push for sustainability is focusing attention on the need to protect our planet for future generations. At tesa, our innovators constantly rethink the way we make products and packaging to ensure sustainability is built into our portfolio. And we’re making strong progress.
Bio-based and recycled materials form the heart of that progress. tesa teams are redesigning products and packaging to include more of these materials—and less input derived from fossil fuels. By 2030, we aim to use 70 percent bio-based or recycled material while also reducing our use of non-recycled plastics by half. We achieved several big successes last year.
tesa uses the biomass balance approach to replace fossil-based materials in its production processes. Seven products, including tesa® 4965 Original Next Gen and our Transfer Tapes tesa® 755xx, are now made from raw materials with renewable and bio-based content. This cuts the CO₂ footprint of these products by 40 percent on average, reducing the amount of fossil fuels needed to make them.
– equal to the emissions of 880 cars.
(Quelle: Monitoring of CO₂ emissions from passenger cars)
In addition, scientists from tesa and BASF developed a bio-based acrylate monomer for the production of adhesives in 2024. This groundbreaking innovation called 2-octyl acrylate is based on renewable materials such as the castor bean, which does not compete with food and feed and significantly reduces the CO₂ footprint compared to conventional fossil raw materials through sustainable cultivation. It now enables the production of high-performance adhesives with more renewable ingredients and fewer fossil components.
tesa also took decisive steps to increase its use of recycled materials during 2024. Our duct tapes are a powerful example. These products are trusted by customers across industries for sealing and repairing a vast range of parts, components and surfaces. Now, they can also trust tapes like tesa® 60462 to help them boost sustainability. The backing material for this product is made from more than 60 percent recycled material that comes from household waste.
These changes to our product formulations, while maintaining performance, make a big contribution to sustainability—and our redesigned packaging expands that positive impact. Our teams constantly seek to reduce the volume of packaging material we use, while also unlocking recyclable designs and swapping fossil-based plastic for recycled plastic or more easily recyclable materials like paper.
Three highlight projects boosted our progress toward these targets in 2024.
First, we switched to using 100 percent recycled plastic for all plastic end-walls worldwide. Second, our teams now use recycled plastic to make roll cores for several tesa products.
And third, we continued to increase the proportion of recycled plastic in our roll bags and film tubes.
Bio-based and recycled materials are helping to accelerate the global push for sustainability. In 2024, tesa took action to increase its use of these materials and decrease its use of fossil-derived inputs. Now, our scientists are building on these successes by rethinking materials for all of our product and packaging designs. In this way, we can make sure sustainability is built into our portfolio—and help to protect our planet for future generations.
tesa has set itself the goal of significantly increasing product sustainability and is working on this every day. Over the next few years, for example, we will be developing many new products that make a sustainable contribution to our top product ranges in the automotive, electrical, and construction industries, as well as for our consumers in the office and home. In doing so, we are focusing on the reduction of non-recycled fossil plastics and will increasingly use recycled and bio-based materials.
