The world stands at the cusp of a radical transformation driven by three main factors: sustainability challenges that are not only a matter of survival but rather urgent; phenomenal advancements in technology; and significant geopolitical shifts in a rapidly evolving world order. I explore how India's chemical industry can seize this opportunity to lead the transformation through innovation and sustainable models. If India does the right things, it is in a great position to leverage amazing new technologies, deliver sustainable models, build upon India's strengths, and fulfil India's aspirations and provide value and solutions to the world.

The chemical industry is integral to and intertwined with all human activity. It is thus bound to see a transformation that would drastically alter the shape of global manufacturing as well as global supply chains.

We will see radical change over the next decade and beyond. It's both a necessity and an opportunity. We need those products and conveniences. The chemical industry must not only reduce the negative environmental impact but must also play an important role in providing solutions to the world to help solve issues and remedy the ecological damage. This will drive innovation enabled by technological advancements happening now and even greater ones to come.

India's chemical industry is the sixth largest globally and third largest in Asia, contributing over 7 per cent to GDP and 13 per cent of exports. With current market value exceeding $220 billion and projected to reach $ 1 trillion by 2040, it has a crucial role to play in India’s sustainable economic development.

The transformative shifts, rising domestic demand, solid talent pool, focus on green, safe, circular, and efficientl, and demographic tailwinds augur well for India. But turning that promise into real progress will depend on how well we align industrial policy, R&D investment, infrastructure, sustainability goals, and talent development — to leapfrog from volume & cost-based growth to sustainable growth through value-driven innovation.

Sunset to Sunrise

The chemical industry contributed to human progress and the first wave of innovation around the world wars and going upto 1980s transformed human life. From polyester and nylon to petrochemicals, plastics, medicines, and synthetic rubber — the chemical revolution enabled the convenient world we live in. Today, it's nearly impossible to identify a human activity untouched by chemicals. Beyond the 1990, however it began to be perceived as a sunset industry. Other areas like IT, Electronics, Automotive, and Pharma were capturing the imagination while chemicals was seen as mature, less innovative, stagnating and less value creating.

Most significantly with rising awareness about environmental degradation, pollution, and climate change, chemicals came to be associated with harm - to the planet, health, and ecological balance. 

We stand at a pivotal point — a time of extraordinary change where the path we choose will shape the future for our industry and for our generations to come. We need those products or their benefits. Demand for convenience and performance is only increasing, but we realize we can't sustain the ecological costs. Either we must change products or processes or both. We need a new kind of chemistry: green, safe, circular, and efficient.

Necessity is the mother of invention. I am confident we're entering a new era we will see a second wave of innovation. Where previous decades innovation focussed on new products using fossil-based feedstocks and emphasized scale and cost reduction, the new era prioritizes sustainability, circularity, and regenerative impact.

Let us not forget that the chemical industry is a mother industry — a foundational layer upon which countless other industries depend automobiles, electronics, construction, textiles, consumer goods, renewable energy, and more and innovations here cascade into many more.

We don't have to grow like China or developed countries as they did decades ago. We can leapfrog with advanced technologies to deliver sustainable solutions without incurring the ecological costs they did.

Far from being a sunset sector, I firmly believe the chemical industry is re-emerging as a sunrise industry with India being in a great position to gain. Those who innovate and deliver solutions the world needs will build the next generation of businesses. Those who cling to the old ways — what I call the 'karkhana mindset' — risk fading away.

Three Drivers of Radical Change

We face complex challenges that seem impossible to solve — yet solving them is essential and urgent. At the same time, technological advancement offers hope and the power to tackle what once seemed unsolvable. Despite the gravity of challenges, I remain optimistic. The spirit of human endeavour will prevail.

The Sustainability Imperative

The most pressing issue is the planet's escalating sustainability crisis. Climate change, resource depletion, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, and toxic load are real threats and intensifying.

Highlighting urgency: climate scientists estimate oceans are absorbing excess heat equivalent to four to six Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs every second. This thermal load is disrupting weather patterns, accelerating glacial melt, and triggering oceanic die-offs — destabilizing entire ecological systems.

However, climate change is only one side. The other, less talked-about but more worrying, is toxic overload. A quiet catastrophe spreads across our air, soil, water, food, and bodies of living beings. We're often asked if people will pay for "greener solutions." A study indicates Delhi residents could lose up to 11.9 years of life expectancy due to pollution. Are we not already paying a very large cost? 

Considering indicators: Phytoplankton populations — responsible for 50-70 per cent of Earth's oxygen — have declined 40 per cent in 70 years. We've lost 24-28 billion tonnes of annual CO₂ absorption. Nearly 73 per cent of global wildlife has been wiped out in 50 years. Today, 96 per cent of mammal biomass consists of humans and livestock; wild mammals are only 4 per cent.

The challenge isn't just carbon emissions but chemical contamination and ecological collapse. Many chemicals causing damage are slow to degrade, bioaccumulate, and spread silently. Unlike carbon dioxide with natural sinks, toxins often have no return path.

Tech Revolution

We're witnessing breath-taking acceleration in technological capability. Key disciplines — biology, chemistry, computation, cognitive science — are merging. I sometimes say the future of the chemical industry is biology. Biological processes involve the most complex, integrated chemistry working with physics and intelligence in perfectly sustainable manner.

Green Hydrogen and Carbon Capture: India generates 2.6 billion tonnes of CO₂ annually. We can capture and convert this to useful products. Moreover, India is also on track to become a leading and the most cost-effective producer green hydrogen. That gives us the two key building blocks for hydrocarbons available across the country.

India's renewable energy capacity grew from 73 GW in 2014 to 200 GW in 2024, expected to exceed 500 GW by 2030. Our solar costs are 27 per cent lower than China, 35 per cent lower than USA, 47 per cent lower than EU. India's high solar energy harvest potential — 1650 KWH/m² — is 41 per cent higher than China, 83 per cent higher than Japan.

Electrochemical Processing: This can replace heat-driven, fossil fuel-based reactions with electron-driven ones powered by renewable electricity — cleaner, safer, modular. The fascinating thing is flexibility: same reactors can be repurposed to make different molecules by changing voltage and catalysts.

AI Revolutionizing R&D: AI tools are slashing R&D timelines from years to months. Platforms like IBM RXN and DeepMind's AlphaFold predict reaction outcomes and protein structures with unprecedented accuracy. Self-driving laboratories autonomously discover molecules and optimize conditions.

Synthetic Biology: We're using engineered microbes like living factories. Companies program microbes to produce products for cosmetics, fragrances, therapeutic proteins. A fascinating example is self-healing concrete with bacteria that activate when cracks develop and help seal the crack. Microbes are also being used to capture carbon from emissions and convert it into useful products. We will see bioreactors being increasingly used and energy intensive processes will be replaced by lower energy, cleaner and greener manufacturing. In future we are talking about Biofabrication, regenerative organs, factory produced meat and leather and microorganisms that can consume plastic and clean up our water bodies.

Autonomous Robotics: Fanuc in Japan manufactures 50 robots daily with no humans entering the factory for a month. Humanoids will soon handle material, repetitive tasks, safety inspections. In chemical plants, robots will patrol shop floors detecting leaks, perform lab work 24x7, and enter unsafe zones. We can expect capex costs of plants to come down and productivity, quality, efficiency and safety to improve.

On a different note, we may think self-healing concrete is miraculous. But nature does this constantly — from bacteria to plants to animals, creating new life from single cells. Life has that knowledge; our conscious minds just lack access. Imagine possibilities when genetics, synthetic biology, human intelligence, AI, and cellular programming integrate

Geopolitical and Supply Chain Shifts

The post-Cold War era of stable globalization is over. Rising US-China tensions, conflicts in Europe and Middle East, and emphasis on national security are reshaping the world order. We've had really VUCA times — Covid exposed supply chain vulnerabilities, followed by Russia-Ukraine war and unpredictable Trump presidency.

India stands out demographically, has a median age under 29 and expecting expects to add 140 million middle-income households by 2030, boosting demand. "China+1" strategies position India as natural alternative with large talent pool, improving infrastructure, and political stability.

These three forces — sustainability imperative, technological acceleration, and geopolitical reordering — collectively reshaping the future. India, with its unique advantages, natural endowments, demographic profile and strategic positioning has a great opportunity.

India Advantage

Resource Abundance: India's vast agriculture produces ~500 MMT of biomass annually, mostly underutilized. Converting just 20 per cent could produce 50-75 MMT of bio-based chemicals, create $25-40 billion value while provide income to 100+ million farming households.

Demographic Dividend: India produces 1.5 million STEM graduates annually, including 200,000+ chemical engineers. This talent pool enables high-quality operations and research at 30-50 per cent lower costs than developed markets. Urban consumption grows above 10 per cent annually; rural markets show even higher potential. The capex costs in India are also substantially lower.

Import Substitution: India's chemical imports total $60+ billion annually. Key segments include specialty chemicals (40 per cent import-dependent), electronic chemicals (70 per cent import-dependent). This gives an opportunity of $25-30 billion in import substitution while building exports.

Way Forward for India

Our ambition must go beyond becoming a low-cost manufacturing alternative. The world needs a model combining efficiency, innovation, circularity, and sustainability and we must aspire to create knowledge-based companies producing differentiated products and solutions.

Planetary survival and progress are intertwined, and development must be pursued with deep ecological consciousness and global responsibility. India needs to build an industry that reflects aspirations of new India, solves problems and adds value to the world through products, sustainability, ideas, and solutions.

India needs many centres of excellence in sustainable chemistry, focusing on biocatalysis, electrochemistry, AI-driven molecular design. These should combine academic research, industry collaboration, and startup incubation.

The next decade represents a defining era for India's chemical industry. Convergence of sustainability imperatives, technological capabilities, and geopolitical realignments creates unprecedented opportunity to deliver value to domestic as well as global markets.

If India captures just 5 per cent of global sustainable chemistry market by 2040 — projected to reach $500 billion — it would add $25 billion annually to chemical exports while creating millions of jobs. More importantly, it would position India as global solution provider for sustainability challenges.

It will be time of great churn as happens with major transformation. Those who innovate and deliver solutions the world seeks will create great new businesses. Those who don't adapt and stay with old world — the 'karkhana mindset' — will fade away.

The convergence of necessity and possibility, crisis and capability, creates a unique window of opportunity for India to solve its development challenges while contributing solutions to the world. This dual value proposition — serving national interests while advancing global welfare — represents essence of enlightened leadership that is essential to make this happen

As someone said “If sustainability is a fad, it will be the last one” but I have confidence in the unprecedented technology revolution and unbeaten spirit of human endeavour to deliver and I am sure we in the Indian Chemical Industry will seize the opportunity and lead the fascinating transformation in the years to come. 

Just as the first chemical revolution enabled the modern world, the second can enable a sustainable world and take the chemical industry from being a sunset to an exciting sunrise industry for the years to come.

The radical transformation of the world and the chemical industry is interconnected and inevitable. The question is whether the India will seize the unprecedented opportunity, and the strategic moment is now.