Resilience – An Overall Societal Imperative
To achieve greater security, stability, and autonomy, we need a society-wide push for development – anchored by a strong industry, with chemistry at its core.
“Resilire,” from Latin: “to spring back, to rebound.” In physics, resilience refers to a material returning to its original shape after deformation – like a rubber band. But in the sociopolitical realm, it takes on a new meaning.
Here, resilience doesn’t mean preserving the status quo. In our multipolar world, marked by growing instability, uncertainty, and aggression, we must focus on ongoing development – across all levels. Even when solutions are elusive. Even when the process becomes difficult or uncomfortable.
Challenges aren’t confined to just one domain –they ripple across politics, society, and industry. Politicians face discomfort for example when NATO had to decide to increase defense budgets. Socially, things can become uncomfortable when – as in Germany's debate about reintroducing military service – many face the question of whether they're willing to defend their country by force.
Industry, too, must confront discomfort. To be truly resilient, companies need backup plans – from securing diverse raw material sources to finding safer logistics routes, building new markets, ensuring cyber resilience, and reducing dependency on single partners. This isn’t just about agility – it also means rising costs and a shift in how we define business success.
Resilience Requires Collaboration
An often-uncomfortable truth: Resilience isn’t something one actor can achieve alone. Security, stability, and autonomy depend on collective action. Siloed thinking and isolated strategies won’t cut it. Industry must advocate for a functioning political system, strong social cohesion, scientific freedom, and a healthy environment. Conversely, political and social progress is only possible with a robust industrial backbone.
This is an all-hands-on-deck moment. We need a holistic understanding of resilience and security – one that includes defense capabilities, crisis preparedness, and societal transformation. We must understand resilience as an overall societal project. That means aligning economic and industrial policies around strategic, long-term goals: enhancing infrastructure, safeguarding supply chains, and fostering sectors essential to resilience. Politics must set the right conditions – without smothering innovation through micromanagement or overregulation.
Chemistry: The Invisible Infrastructure
This applies to all key areas that must be available, especially in times of crisis and conflict: from food to medicine to IT and energy. And behind them all is one often-overlooked force: the chemical and plastics industries. They are the foundation that enables everything else to function.
Consider food security. In crisis scenarios, plastic packaging becomes a lifeline. Easy to produce in large volumes, it protects food from contaminants, moisture, oxygen, and light – extending shelf life and ensuring supply.
In the energy sector, autonomy is becoming a strategic asset. Renewable sources are ideal, and technologies like wind turbines, solar panels, and battery storage all depend on plastics. These materials increase energy output while lowering production costs.
Defense? It too depends on high-performance plastics – in vehicles, aircraft, communications systems, and protective gear. These materials make military equipment lighter, stronger, more adaptable, and in many cases, more sustainable.
System Change Starts With Circular Thinking
However, resilience isn’t built by patching cracks – it demands systemic transformation. A shift to a circular economy isn’t just environmentally responsible; it’s economically and geopolitically strategic.
By closing material loops and recycling resources, we reduce dependency on volatile supply chains and price swings. Instead of relying on fossil-based inputs from unstable regions, circular systems favor regional materials like biomass, carbon dioxide, and waste.
The chemical industry – and Covestro in particular – are already pushing this transformation: embracing renewable raw materials, promoting clean energy, pioneering next-gen recycling tech, and forging global partnerships that benefit all involved. We need to scale up the transformation that the chemical industry is driving. That means fundamentally rethinking our systems. Even when it’s uncomfortable.