Today we took an hour and a half bus ride to visit an international company called Nouryon. We went to their research and development site in Deventer to get some information about how this chemicals company operates. Nouryon creates chemicals that are used in a myriad of products, from household products, like paint or laundry detergent, to chemicals that are used to help with extracting natural resources from the environment. Some of their products are developed for a specific purpose that one of their clients is asking for, but some are just adapted to fit the needs of a client and then sold. I thought hearing about the different ways their products go from concept to customer was interesting because I wouldn’t have thought that a company that manufactures specialty chemicals would be able to sell the same products to multiple companies.
Nouryon also taught us much about how their company addresses sustainability. They mainly focus on 10 of the UN’s sustainability goals. They also received an A- in the Global Climate Change category, which is very impressive. They noted how large percentages of their energy comes from renewable resources and five of the manufacturing facilities are carbon neutral. They mentioned that their goal was for the entire company to be carbon neutral by 2050. I think that this is a common goal that many companies announce, but I don’t know if this is possible for many of these companies with the track that they are on. For Nouryon, I think this could be a difficult goal because of how they mentioned the difficulty of transferring older manufacturing facilities to renewable energy sources. Another important aspect of sustainability for Nouryon is making sure its products are biodegradable, which is especially important for a chemical company. If their products didn’t degrade naturally, then their chemicals could negatively impact the environment and humans.
After we ate a delicious lunch with a few Nouryon employees, we went to see what happens in the company’s laboratories. My group first went to see a lab that tests laundry and dishwasher detergent to try to develop the most effective detergents. The most interesting part of this to me was the fact that they don’t try to make the best cleaning chemicals possible; they try to make ones that are good enough so that the customer is satisfied. I was surprised to hear this because I would have thought that Nouryon would try to make the best product possible to get a leg up on their competitors. From a business perspective, they do this to save money instead of spending it on something the customer would never notice, which makes sense because that way they get to make more money. We also went to a safety lab where we got to see some cool explosions and fire. Here they test their products to make sure they are safe, For example, we learned that not too much of this explosive chemical can be stored in one place because of the testing that they’ve done to understand it.
After leaving Nouryon, we went to have some hors d’oeuvres with Pitt alumni living in the Netherlands. I got to talk to most of them and they all talked about how much they love living in the Netherlands. When talking to an alumnus who works for Philips, I learned how different life is here, especially for children. He mentioned how much easier it is to walk to everywhere you need to, which makes it easier for children to be independent from a young age. I also talked to an alumnus who works for ASML who discussed the difficulty of shipping its large machines around the world because they have to construct them first to develop them, but they take them apart to get them out the door.
Overall, I have learned a lot about how Dutch companies are more focused on sustainability, and how the Dutch are more direct both in personal and business matters.