The growing importance of sustainability
Many industries are facing greater demands for sustainability and circularity – including product Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) and Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). Stainless steel is highly recyclable, which means that stainless steel fasteners can be a more sustainable material option than carbon steel in many applications.
As industries better understand LCA costs, long-term value and sustainability, we anticipate new market opportunities and a growing demand for stainless steel materials. The fact is that premium stainless steel fasteners last longer, and require less maintenance and replacement, which also boost their sustainability profile. At BUMAX, we are investing considerable time and resources to anticipate the future needs of industry, and working with customers and industry partners to develop our product and service offering accordingly.
Continued innovation
A great deal has happened with premium stainless steel fasteners in recent years, such as in terms of fastener properties and capabilities, and I expect this to continue in 2022 as new products are developed to meet even more demanding fastener applications. One of the most recent additions to the BUMAX high strength product family is BUMAX® NITRO 109, which is designed to achieve both excellent corrosion resistance in marine environments as well as delivering high strength, equivalent to 10.9 at large diameters – up to M36! We also have a number of additional exciting products and new production capabilities in the pipeline. Watch this space!
Continued market instability
Unfortunately, economic instability, supply chain issues and uncertainty look likely to continue well into 2022, largely due to the ongoing effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, BUMAX has proved highly resilient to such issues and challenges during the pandemic. We continue to see supply chain pricing pressures in the form of higher steel and logistics costs. While we try to curb these effects, it is likely that prices will continue to rise further during 2022.
At BUMAX, we only source European steel of the highest quality and enjoy longstanding relationships with our suppliers. We also have our own production facilities in Sweden and continue to maintain large stocks of product ready for shippment to customers. This enables us to partially insulate ourselves from supply chain costs that will hopefully avoid significant price rises for our customers.