An Open Letter to the Surfactants Industry

This letter comprises the opinion section in the first, sample, issue of our Surfactants Quarterly Newsletter. I want to share it more broadly to see what others in related industries might think. I'd like to hear your comments and questions.

Dear Friend and Colleague,

This industry needs to stand up for itself. I’m not talking about or critiquing our professional associations and lobbying groups like the ACI, AOCS, PCPC, MPOB and the like. I have tremendous admiration for these groups and the work they do. I encourage my clients to support them with their time and money. I mean the industry; that is the people in it. You and me. You.

Yes, I’m talking about the infamous cocktail party chatter syndrome. A couple of years ago, at my World Surfactant Conference and then later at CESIO, I drew some contrasts between such great brand names and admired companies as Coke and Pepsi and our surfactant industry. Believe me, the fizzy drink companies came up woefully short.

Cynical marketers to children, of sugar laden drinks, driving obesity to record levels, don’t look so good next to the industry that supports world health and hygiene via the simple and cost effective availability of personal and household cleaning products. Sowers of tooth decay to kids and adults alike, taking the state of our teeth back to a condition not seen since the cave-man era when we figured out how not to chew on the stones that came out of the fire with the meat, don’t stack up well against companies making essential products for agriculture, transportation and energy, feeding the world and keeping the lights on. I’m exaggerating, just a little bit, for dramatic effect, but not much. Since dabbling in the venture field with my start-up P2 Science, I get asked by VC’s “what’s the reason your company exists?”. That, by the way, is easy. P2 exists to improve the consumer experience with renewable specialty chemicals. Ask that same question of the fizzy drink guys and the answer is that they exist to create and then monetize an addiction to sugar among the most vulnerable sectors of our population. Now, I’m not particularly focused here on trashing Coke and Pepsi. That’s not the point and really those companies are not that important. In fact the whole fizzy pop industry is of little consequence. If Coke, Pepsi or the whole industry were to disappear today, what would happen? Nothing! Except perhaps our society may be quite a bit healthier. If BASF or Solvay were to disappear, along with the whole surfactant industry, it’d be lights out for civilization, literally. And we’d be far from healthy, in fact most of us would be gone and, if you think about it for a moment, there is no exaggeration there. Sarcasm and rhetoric to make a point? OK, I’ll give you that.

Again, I’m not going all “nanny state - Bloomberg” on you here. I honestly couldn’t care less about sugary pop. The point is that our surfactant industry is an enormous force for social and economic good (even when compared to some household names and American icons!) but we ourselves often don’t recognize it, let alone talk about it. All the while, the surfactant industry, like the chemical industry as a whole, is often sniped at by quasi-respectable entities, using rhetoric every bit as inflammatory as my diatribe in the paragraph above. I encourage all of you look at some of the publications from Greenpeace, EDF, the Independent Newspaper and other sources that I discussed at CESIO last year. Inveighing against “contamination of the child” as Greenpeace does, is guaranteed to tug at the heartstrings of any reader. But you want to talk about childbirth and health? When surfactant assisted handwashing was introduced by Ignaz Semmelweiss in Budapest in the late 1800’s, mortality at childbirth was cut immediately to one sixth of what it was. Health in general? Without the $5.2 Billion surfactant assisted agricultural adjuvant industry, $52 Billion worth of pesticides would not be able to do their jobs and 7.2 Billion people on the planet would find it more difficult, time consuming and expensive to feed themselves. Some of them would starve.

OK you get the point, I hope. So what to do? First don’t be that “angry industry guy”. Be a happy warrior. Make your case with a smile and be optimistic. You love this industry. It does some great and cool things and you live on this planet too. You’re invested in the community and you like the contributions your industry has made to it. What’s not to be happy about? It is really exciting what’s happening in surfactants and the industries they support. Let people know. Which people? Your friends and family, club members, church members, soccer moms, baseball dads, your son’s girlfriend and so on. This is the cocktail party chatter I reference above. You’re standing around the mince pies at a Christmas party and someone asks what you do. Don’t mumble something about engineering then change the subject. You’re in the surfactant business and you love it! The products your company makes do some cool things like keep airplanes in the air, cars on the road and food on the table. They keep your body and clothes clean and hygienic. It’s great to be involved with an industry that does so much good!

The second thing I want to you to do, is to bear in mind what I have recently taken to calling the “Angelina’s Garden” test.

The best industry talk I have seen in a long time was by Carl Bek-Nielsen the CEO of Malaysian palm company, United Plantations. I talk about this in some detail in my blog. Carl was addressing the issue of sustainability in the oil palm business and the public scrutiny that palm and oleochemicals has attracted. The key point for me was the following “Like it or not, the proboscis monkey and the orangutan are the stars of the jungle. They are Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt”. What on earth did he mean by this? Clearly, no matter what you think, everybody loves Angelina and Brad, just like they love the orangutan and the monkey. So if you ran a palm plantation (or your surfactant business) in Angelina’s back garden, for example, your every move would be scrutinized and, likely criticized if you disturbed her or kept the kids awake at night. So too with your plantation in the orangutan’s garden (i.e. the Malaysian or Indonesian jungle). You’re not going to change this, so be above reproach in your conduct of business and be ready to call out any of your peers that you see doing something that may not meet the “Angelina’s garden” test. Think about it. A simple message, put very powerfully. Personally, I am not hugely impressed by Angelina or Brad as actors. Their reputation in my view, somewhat outstrips their talents. But what I think on this matter does not count much against the collective tastes of the readers of People Magazine for example. Are you getting Carl’s message? Your yoga class and your soccer mom friends don’t read ICIS Chemical Business. They read People Magazine, which not only covers Angelina but the orangutan also.

So, to pass the Angelina’s Garden test, acknowledge the culture. You, alone, at that cocktail party, in front of the mince pies, are not going to change it. Someone raises the issue of toxic and dangerous personal care products? As one actually in the industry, with kids too, you’re more concerned than most with what you put in their bath and on their skin every day. “By the way” you say, “did you hear about that scandal with Jessica Alba’s Honest Company sunscreen failing and giving kids sunburn? Ironic huh? Given the name of the company and the high profile owner’s claims to make safer and more honest products than the industry has to date?”.."But more importantly”, you continue, “surfactants are available in a range of properties, strengths and compatibilities with skin age and type. If you want to strip out grease and dirt quickly, you use a salon shampoo designed for just that. Babies get J&J’s baby shampoo and those with sensitive skin use products like Aveeno made with specific ingredients to mitigate potential for irritancy. Surfactant assisted health and hygiene has saved so many lives. If surfactants were as dangerous as, say, cars, maybe we should ban them or at least restrict their use. How come a senior has to drive a car to high school anyway? The school bus is still free!” (OK maybe I’m veering into “angry industry guy” territory with that one).

I hope I’ve given you (as an individual) something to think about. Speak up and do it happily. This is an exciting and great industry. Just read about some of the things happening in your own industry. You’ll see what I mean. In summary then – three things:

• We’re a force for social good (unlike, say, soda pop)
• We’re happy warriors (not the angry industry guy)
• We know we’re in Angelina’s garden

Sincerely, Your Friend and Colleague,

Neil Burns