Inclusive Business: Where Covestro Material Innovation Meets Community Impact

The Challenge: Losses That Go Beyond Numbers

Across global food production systems, a significant share of agricultral products is lost after harvest, driven by gaps in storage, handling, and distribution rather than production itself. These losses not only undermine farmer incomes, but also deepen food insecurity, strain waste management systems, and contribute to avoidable environmental impact.

India illustrates this challenge at scale. As the world’s second-largest producer of fruits and vegetables and third-largest producer of fish, the country has strong food production capabilities. Yet post-harvest losses remain at 15% for horticulture and 20% for fisheries, with smallholder farmers and fisherfolk lacking access to affordable cold chain storage, drying, and storage infrastructure. The result is distress sales, income loss, and reduced nutritional availability for millions. Post-harvest loss reduction remains an urgent priority.

A similar gap is emerging in sanitation systems. While infrastructure has expanded rapidly, treatment capacity has not kept pace. In India alone, an estimated 119,000 metric tonnes of sewage sludge is generated daily, with a substantial share remaining untreated – often ending up in landfills or through informal disposal routes. This poses significant public health and environmental risks, a challenge that municipalities and local bodies across India continue to grapple with. Effective bio-solid management and waste resource conversion are critical in addressing the challenge.

These are not isolated problems. They represent systemic infrastructure gaps where the right innovation, applied at the right scale, can create lasting change.

Our Approach: Smart Materials for Real-World Challenges

Our Inclusive Business initiative applies the company’s core material expertise to design scalable material solutions that are also affordable for underserved communities. By leveraging high-performance polycarbonate (PC) and polyurethane (PUR), the initiative focuses on high-impact applications that address critical gaps in more sustainable food systems and sanitation systems.

Our solutions span two critical sectors: food security and bio-solid management.

In food security, polycarbonate-based greenhouse systems enable year-round cultivation in climate-constrained regions, while solar-powered drying and cold storage solutions reduce post-harvest spoilage and give farmers greater control over when and how they sell their produce.

In bio-solid management, polycarbonate-based solar greenhouse sludge drying solution safely treats a wide variety of sludge types into reusable outputs – such as organic manure or energy briquettes and pellets – shifting from disposal to a recover-and-reuse model.

Working alongside implementation partners, NGOs, government bodies, social enterprises, as well as researchers and universities, we co-develop solutions that are technically sound, economically viable, and socially impactful. This approach is grounded in the belief that chemistry should serve people at every level of the value chain.

A Vision That Goes Beyond Business

Our commitment to inclusive growth is a strategic expression of its broader purpose – to make the world a brighter place through chemistry that works for everyone. With a focus on sustainable social transformation, we direct material innovation toward communities and sectors that need it most – expanding the boundaries of what high-performance polymers can achieve: improving livelihoods, protecting the environment, and creating shared value across People, Planet, and Profit.

* Climate-smart refers to solutions designed to help communities adapt to and thrive under changing climatic conditions and related challenges, while minimizing environmental impact.