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Why the right chemistry matters
“It was a big change,” says Ben Lux, Chief Technology Officer, as he walks into the laboratory at the ACTEGA site in Grevenbroich, Germany. “A couple of years ago, I took the opportunity to transition from independent entrepreneur to CTO at ACTEGA. What drew me in was the great potential and the influence our work could have.” In 2025 alone, ACTEGA sold over 15,000 unique products that physically touched the lives of billions of people. “Our products and their downstream impacts can have an enormous effect on sustainability.”
Responsibility at scale
In 2017, Ben joined ACTEGA following its acquisition of NuLabel Technologies, a sustainable packaging company he co-founded in 2009 while at university in Providence, Rhode Island, U.S. Today, he is based at ACTEGA’s Innovation Center at the site of the former startup and leads a team of over 100 people spanning the Americas to Asia. “There’s a lot of responsibility that comes with delivering solutions at scale.” Every year, ACTEGA develops and launches hundreds of new products globally. Each new product starts as an idea, and with creativity, ingenuity, and a clear focus on sustainability, the team transforms these ideas into impactful innovations. “We aim for a world where materials and packaging technology are so advanced that there’s no such thing as packaging waste. It might sound crazy, but it’s something we’re working toward every day.” Technologies such as Signite help turn this into reality, enabling ACTEGA’s customers to reduce waste while delivering a 30 percent lower global warming potential compared to the status quo technology.
We love to see brands set ambitious goals and when consumers demand more sustainable solutions.
A powerful force
Ben emphasizes that sustainability, innovation, and profitable growth aren’t at odds with each other: “More than 80 percent of our innovation pipeline targets new sustainable solutions. With over 25 percent of our revenue coming from new products, we’re laying the foundation for a sustainable future for ACTEGA and the packaging industry. It shows how much combining innovation with sustainability pays off. To us, it’s a powerful force.” The latest result of this combination is ACTNext, a coating product line for the metal packaging industry that uses advanced energy-curing technology instead of solvent-based technology to unlock sustainable value for customers and for the planet. “We draw inspiration for new products or technologies from the challenges our industry partners face. The same happened with ACTNext.”
The metal packaging industry is at a turning point, undergoing a phase of profound transformation driven by a growing demand for greater sustainability, higher efficiency, and strict regulatory compliance. “Thanks to our innovations, we were able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in manufacturing by 20 percent and along the value chain by 40 percent. At the customer level, the reduction even reached 95 percent.”
Blending stability with innovation
Although Ben is no longer an independent entrepreneur, he has no regrets about this step. For him, joining ACTEGA meant combining the stability of a corporate environment with the freedom to innovate. “It’s the best of both worlds: I can still live my entrepreneurial spirit while developing products and solutions that help our customers become more sustainable.” He adds: “And I get to do this alongside brilliant, like-minded people around the world, which is the best part.”
More than
80 %
of ACTEGA'S innovation pipeline targets sustainable solutions.
