Bayer MaterialScience LLC Launches EcoCommercial Building Program in North America

Pittsburgh, April 2010 — This week, Bayer MaterialScience LLC announced the official launch of its EcoCommercial Building Program in the NAFTA region. This program focuses on offering materials and fostering collaboration among industry, academia and government to provide holistic solutions to building decision makers.

“We’re building a collaborative network that brings together innovative products and services to make sustainable, environmentally friendly and profitable building solutions possible,” explained Paul Platte, head, EcoCommercial Building Program, NAFTA, Bayer MaterialScience LLC.

According to Platte, Bayer MaterialScience LLC, a member of the U.S. Green Building Council and Pittsburgh Green Building Alliance, is currently seeking network member organizations that can provide products and/or services for the program’s seven building solution areas that help to increase sustainability and reduce energy costs:

•  Insulation
•  Daylighting
•  Illumination
•  Indoor Environment Quality
•  Sustainable Energy
•  Intelligent Building
•  Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning

By working collaboratively, the EcoCommercial Building network will be able to address energy savings, environmentally friendly materials, emission-reducing materials, efficiency in application, ecology and economics – what Bayer MaterialScience considers to be the “Six Es” of sustainable building solutions.

The NAFTA program is part of Bayer MaterialScience’s global EcoCommercial Building initiative launched last fall. To showcase the viability of the program, Bayer MaterialScience currently has four EcoCommercial Building projects – an operational children’s day care center for employees of Bayer CropScience in Germany, an operational Bayer administration building in Belgium, an office building under construction in India, and a conference center on the U.S. headquarters campus in Pittsburgh. The conference center will be part of an open house, systems demonstration event that will take place on May 26. There are two other planned North America EcoCommercial Building projects that will be unveiled in upcoming weeks and months.

According to John Houston, senior vice president, head of Coatings, Adhesives and Specialties, Bayer MaterialScience LLC, the EcoCommercial Building initiative is a natural fit with the company’s business and sustainability objectives.

“At Bayer MaterialScience, our longstanding commitment to innovation, product stewardship and sustainability impacts the products we produce and the markets we serve, and this program aligns perfectly with that commitment,” explained Houston. “Our materials already play an important role in a number of sustainable building design and construction solutions. Now, with the EcoCommercial Building program, we have the opportunity to take this one step further by engaging other network members to more completely address the market need for more sustainable building solutions,” he continued.

Bayer MaterialScience products currently utilized in sustainable building design and construction solutions include:

•  Solid and multi-wall architectural sheets of polycarbonate for glazing, sky lights and façade cladding which enable daylighting with reduced energy usage and aid visual comfort.
•  Sealing systems, based on Bayer MaterialScience’s polyurethane raw materials, for sealing flat roofs to produce a seamless, highly root-resistant protective layer that also aids energy savings by significantly reducing drafts.
•  LED lighting systems that can illuminate while reducing electricity consumption and heat loads are enhanced by the company’s polycarbonates when used in LED lenses and lamp housings providing the lighting system excellent service life in all types of conditions.
•  Coating systems based on Bayer MaterialScience’s raw materials that are characterized by high resistance to aging and low maintenance costs while doing so with low solvent or waterborne formulations.
•  Spray or rigid polyurethane foam from Bayer MaterialScience is used for indoor and outdoor thermal insulation of roofs, walls and floors. The energy saved, over the life of a building, through the use of polyurethane insulation foam can yield a better than 70-to-1 return on the energy needed to produce the foam raw materials.
•  Photovoltaic modules are used to harvest solar energy. The company’s TPU encapsulant film enables efficient embedding of solar cells into the film to yield high-quality photovoltaic modules. Also, polyurethane in combination with pultrusion technology enables a light-weight, modular framing system aiding installation of building integrated photovoltaic elements onto the roof.

Bayer MaterialScience LLC is one of the leading producers of polymers and high-performance plastics in North America and is part of the global Bayer MaterialScience business with approximately 14,300 employees at 30 production sites around the world and 2009 sales of 7.5 billion euros. The company manufactures high-tech polymer materials and develops innovative solutions for products used in many areas of daily life. The main segments served are the automotive, electrical and electronics, construction, medical, and sports and leisure industries. Sustainability is central to Bayer MaterialScience LLC’s business and is based around the key areas of innovation, product stewardship, excellence in corporate management, social responsibility and respect for the environment.

Contact:
Sean Kelly, Phone: 412-777-5200
E-mail: sean.kelly@bayerbms.com

For more information about Bayer MaterialScience, call 1-800-662-2927, e-mail naftainfo@bayerbms.com or visit www.bayermaterialsciencenafta.com.

This news release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by Bayer Group or subgroup management. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and the estimates given here. These factors include those discussed in Bayer’s public reports which are available on the Bayer website at www.bayer.com. The company assumes no liability whatsoever to update these forward-looking statements or to conform them to future events or developments.