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This is our annual Emerging Technologies issue, in which we feature news items, articles and profiles of some of our industry’s newest and most innovative research.

Doing things right or doing the right thing? That’s a question I have heard raised in the context of sustainability as people have sought to identify what exactly is the right path to make our world a truly better and more sustainable place for us and future generations.

Shale gas was a hot topic at this year’s CTT event.

I can still recall the smell of solvent-based gloss paint as it dried after application at home.

Coatings can be found among the 800-year-old primitive dwellings at Mesa Verde.

New sustainable developments that come from ‘left field’

BYK USA’s expanded facility in Wallingford, CT, will more than double manufacturing capacity.

I don’t want to sound alarmist, but I was deeply disturbed by the recent pronouncements from the IPCC. This learned international organisation concluded that the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has grown to levels not seen for 3 million years, and that about half of cumulative anthropogenic CO2 emissions between 1750 and 2010 have occurred in the last 40 years.

This year, we see steady growth in the industry, as well as signs of possible movement among the world’s top manufacturers.

At the recent ACS show in Atlanta, attendees were asked to identify which supplier industry would be expected to deliver the most significant innovation step over the next three years. In declining order of popularity, attendees predicted developments in the fields of binders, production technology, additives and pigments.