Ten years of enhancing lives with innovative chemistry

At Archroma, we like to say we touch and color people’s lives every day, everywhere.

Founded in 2013, we are a global, diversified leader in specialty chemicals with operations in 42 countries, including over 30 production sites, all certified to ISO management system standards. With the industry’s broadest product portfolio, we serve many of world’s top companies in textiles, packaging, and paper, paints, and coatings. Our team of 5,000 passionate professionals offers industry-leading expertise in manufacturing, technical support, and innovation.

But how did we get here in the space of just ten years? And where are we going?

“The Archroma team is diverse, global, and entirely united in our aim to lead our industry towards a more sustainable future for our customers and markets,” Archroma Group CEO Mark Garrett says. “We have pursued this singular goal for a decade through consolidation, innovation, and collaboration.”

Archroma has its roots in Kern & Sandoz, a textile dye-maker founded in Basel in 1886, which became Clariant in 1995. Clariant acquired the specialty chemicals business of Hoechst in 1997 before selling its Textile Chemicals, Paper Specialties, and Emulsions businesses to SK Capital Partners in September 2013. SK Capital Partners combined the three divisions to create an integrated, market-focused company, renamed Archroma.

Archroma has continued to grow through additional acquisitions since then:

• The global textile chemicals business of BASF was added to Archroma in 2015, with BASF's stilbene-based optical-brightening agents business for paper and powder detergent applications following in 2019.
• M. Dohmen, an international group specializing in the production of textile dyes and chemicals for the automotive, carpet, and apparel sectors, was gradually acquired between 2014 and 2018.
• Huntsman Textile Effects was combined with Archroma in February 2023, bringing together two global leaders to reshape the textile chemicals and dyes sector through sustainability, service, and innovation.

From fiber to finish, Archroma plays a key role throughout the entire value chain, with specialty chemicals for the pretreatment, dyeing, printing, and finishing of apparel, home textiles, technical textiles, paper, packaging, paints, and more. We are also known for our advancements in processing technologies and for the introduction of innovative tools that further support partners to save resources while improving productivity and efficiency.

Our world-class research and development capabilities and leading-edge technologies and solutions help brands and manufacturers in their innovation projects. Together with them, we develop end-products that are safer, made in a more efficient and sustainable way, and add value for the consumer through unique and innovative functions and features.

Among Archroma’s recent ground-breaking innovations are:

• FIBERCOLORS®, beautiful colors partially synthetized from upcycling textile waste, which recently won an Innovation Dyes award at the 2023 Just Style Excellence Awards
• EARTHCOLORS®, warm colors synthesized from partially plant-based waste, which won Gold in the Sustainable Innovations category at the 2017 ISPO OutDoor Industry Award
• SMARTREPEL®, PFC-free* durable water repellents for textile applications
• DENISOL® PURE INDIGO, an aniline-free* indigo solution for denim
• CARTASEAL® NTR, a partially bio-based polymer barrier solution for food
• CARTASEAL®, PFC-free* and ammonia-free* barrier solutions for paper and packaging

We have also introduced industry-leading tools such as:

• The COLOR ATLAS by Archroma®, the industry’s largest library of colors for cotton and polyester, with 5,760 ready-to-use swatches to help designers and stylists rapidly develop and execute their designs with manufacturing partners. It won a coveted Business Expansion/Digital Platform award at the 2023 Just Style Excellence Awards.
• The Archroma ONE WAY Impact Calculator, a process simulation and calculation tool that gives customers an accurate estimate of the costs, resource utilization, effluent discharge quality, and CO₂ emissions of each step of a production process. It won an Independent Chemical Information Service (ICIS) Innovation Award in 2013.
• The SAFE EDGE by Archroma, an online platform for instant access to regulatory and compliance certificates and information. It promotes faster decision-making and time-to-market for manufacturers, brands, and retailers in the textile, paper, packaging, paint, and construction industries.

Collaboration is how we work our customers to add value to their businesses through sustainability. It’s also the basis of our support for industry initiatives like Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) and bluesign®.

In 2020, Archroma co-founded Sustainable Chemistry for the Textile Industry (SCTI)—an alliance of leading chemical companies collaborating to provide the textile and leather industries with the tools to select and apply safer and more sustainable chemistry solutions.

Archroma also works with local communities and organizations around the world, especially on matters relating to water conservation. In Pakistan, for example, we collaborate with World Wide Fund for Nature to promote water recycling and use by local textile plants. Archroma also operates an industry-leading sustainable effluent treatment facility in Jamshoro, Pakistan, which recovers and treats wastewater from our local chemical plants and provides clean drinking water to neighboring villages. Archroma was recognized for these and other initiatives with a World Wildlife Fund Pakistan - Eco-innovation Award for Sustainability in 2016.

As an industry leader, Archroma is committed to supporting global megatrends and societal shifts such as circular fashion, plastic-to-paper replacement, and water-based paints and coatings.

We operate according to the principles of "The Archroma way to a Sustainable World": Safe, efficient, enhanced. It's our nature!". This guides our innovation efforts and all our interactions with customers, partners and employees. In 2021 and 2022, we were honored to earn a platinum rating for corporate social responsibility from EcoVadis, a leading sustainability ratings organization. This puts us within the top 1% of companies in our industry.

“Sustainability is our road ahead. We’ve made much progress over the past decade, thanks to the contributions of our amazing people and to the support and trust of our customers, suppliers and partners. I’m confident that we can continue to thrive together and lead our industry to a more sustainable future,” Mark Garrett explains.