(upbeat music) - LEK works with our chemicals industry clients to really truly understand first, what are their core needs and how are they challenged in solving them? Whether those are, how do we grow profitably or how do we become more sustainable, different kinds of challenges require customized approaches and solutions, and we work with our clients in different ways, depending upon what those challenges are.
- There's a lot of interest in understanding how to make businesses more sustainable. That's a key issue that we are helping clients navigate, particularly corporate chemicals, firms that are looking to move and diversify outside of hydrocarbon based chemistries into more green chemicals. How do we replicate the success and the scale that we have with our traditional petroleum based chemicals that are toxic for the environment or to our health? How do we transition into something that is more bio-based?
- In the chemicals industry, the end markets are extremely important to consider, because they behave in different ways. In some end markets, like personal care products, cosmetics, beauty products, for example, there's a very strong consumer sensitivity to having sustainable non-chemical based products in going onto their skin and on their bodies. If you think about the automotive industry, while there is interest in some, by some companies to move towards more sustainable solutions, there's still a lot of cost pressures to try to make sure that anything that's more sustainable doesn't create a price premium for that product.
- It's an exciting time to be a part of the chemicals industry, because of the rapid transformation that we're now seeing, the traction that we're now seeing for bio-based chemistries, new technology, research and development, new ways of using digital tools, new ways of optimizing supply chains. So there's a lot of transformation and it's exciting to be a part of helping our clients develop strategies to navigate what is now the new normal.
- I think the key thing that I wanted to underscore here, really is that there are a lot of people out there concerned about sustainability. There's an enormous amount of investment of time, resources, and energy to try to find more sustainable ways to do things, and that's encouraging to me. And we see a lot of momentum that will carry forward over the next several decades. (upbeat music ending)
