2026 Future of Energy Summit: Craig Cookson and Daniel Kochik

Your car’s headlight, your home’s insulation, and even the cover of a golf ball have something in common: advanced materials that do more work than most of us ever notice. We sit down with Covestro leaders Craig Cookson and Daniel Kochik to unpack how material science quietly boosts safety, durability, and energy efficiency across automotive, housing, healthcare, and emerging tech. If you’ve ever wondered why modern products perform better year after year, the answer often starts with chemistry, design, and manufacturing at scale. 

We also get practical about what it takes to keep US manufacturing competitive in a global economy. Regulatory certainty, a workforce trained for modern plants, and trade rules that reward fair competition shape whether companies can invest confidently for decades-long facility lifecycles. The conversation ties those realities to today’s biggest growth pressures: electric vehicles with heavier batteries, the surge in energy infrastructure, and AI data centers that demand intensive cooling and smarter thermal management. 

Circular economy comes into focus as more than end-of-life recycling. We dig into upstream choices like recycled and bio-based feedstocks, cleaner energy for production, and the downstream challenge of recovering mixed materials from complex products like vehicles. The goal is clear: build the supply chains and technologies that can return plastics to their basic building blocks and keep value in the system. 

If you care about sustainable manufacturing, energy innovation, and the materials shaping everyday life, listen through to the future-looking questions on automation, permitting backlogs, and what we’re underestimating today. Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves tech or policy, and leave a review with the product you’ll “never look at the same way” again.

Transcript

Welcome And Why Materials Matter

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Good morning, everybody, and please welcome Craig Cookson and Daniel Kochek from Covestro for today's Global Future of Energy Summit. Greg serves as Vice President and Head of Public Affairs for North America, leading the company's engagement on innovation, manufacturing, sustainability, and public policy. Daniel is Covestro's government affairs manager, where he works closely with Congress, federal agencies, and industry stakeholders on issues ranging from chemical safety and recycling to trade and workforce development. Together, they bring the expertise at the intersection of advanced manufacturing, public policy, and the technology shaping the future of American industry. Yeah, you deal with everything that everybody is talking right now. Hot topic. I'm glad you're here. So I start with you. Sure.

Hidden Materials In Cars And Homes

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Many people interact with advanced material every day without realizing it. Can you explain how materials innovation is quietly transforming industry ranging from automotive and housing to healthcare and energy? Sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Yeah, well, thanks for uh having me here today. Um Craig Cookson with Covestro. So we are a global manufacturer of chemicals and plastics. We're headquartered in Leverkusen, uh, Germany. Our U.S. headquarters are here in the U.S. Um, excuse me. Our American, our U.S. headquarters are here in Pittsburgh, um, and we have a Washington, D.C. office that works on policy. Our largest manufacturing facility in the U.S. is in uh Baytown, Texas. We make advanced materials, as you mentioned, that go into automotive, that go into um to uh everything from homes to healthcare. So a lot of different leisure. Um, so we have a lot of different innovations we can talk about. From the standpoint of automotive, um, I like to think of one of our kind of quintessential products is really a headlight. We make a um a product called polycarbonate, a plastic, very hard plastic. And you think about going down uh a highway, it's a freezing cold night, it's 25 degrees, you need your lights to shine on the road and you know, make sure you don't go off the road. You're going to speed limit, hopefully. Um, but think it's cold outside, you got a hot light behind it, you might have ice and snow and rocks bumping up, and that headlight really performs its job. I mean, uh unappreciated in that it doesn't it doesn't crack, it doesn't get cloudy, um, and ensures kind of the safety of the person that's in the car. We also are in the uh the foam seats in your car, um some of the headliners. So we are we have a lot of different applications. And when you think about automotives specifically, and you think of a move to electric vehicles and a heavier battery that's in those vehicles, you see a lot of plastic materials that are replacing heavier um metal parts, right? Which helps with, I guess, an electric car, not your fuel economy, but the energy that you're using. In healthcare, we're seeing innovations, everything from uh we are in kidney dialysis machines to if you think of those new GLP injectors, we make those and we make them hopefully to be recyclable as well. Um, and in your home, we're found everywhere, and sometimes it's not maybe the sexiest thing, but in home insulation. Um, and you think about, especially in uh, you know, Washington, D.C., it's gonna get to be, I think, 97 degrees here on Friday. And you think of insulation and the importance of keeping your home nice and cool and not wasting a lot of money. So energy efficiency is really one of the um sometimes the you know the underappreciated parts of uh the whole energy discussion that we have. So and energy, I know we're gonna talk about it more, but is really one of the um most important, you know, we're an energy-intensive industry, but energy to us is both what we use for our process energy, but it's also our raw materials at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Great. Now we know we have to thank you. We have to thank Ovestro for being warm and state. Thank you. So, Craig, um,

What Makes US Manufacturing Competitive

SPEAKER_00 4:15

for you. The United States is investing heavily in domestic manufacturing. Beyond building more factories, what does it take to create a truly competitive manufacturing ecosystem in today's global economy?

SPEAKER_02 4:29

Yeah, I think first and foremost is regulatory certainty. You know, in the last several years, we've had ebbs and flows, the EPA has issued different mandates, we've had trade uh uncertainty on many fronts and various different policies that have really put into question how companies should and can invest and prepare themselves for the future. Um, I think a lot of what we're seeing now with AI and a lot of questions about how that will be regulated also contributes to those questions. And so over time, I think you know, building a solid, durable regulatory regime here in the United States that helps to prepare us and enable manufacturing for the future is key. Um and also ensuring that our workforce here in the US is continually adapting and able to um um meet the challenges of tomorrow with really training, and that starts at the elementary education level, but really continuing to push um push for the future for folks to understand where those key areas were at the United States economy is going to need a lot of um a lot of growth. So think of technology, healthcare, um, STEM fields as well. I think one thing too that's you know, we get this conversation now a lot, uh, but that was probably overlooked previously, is continuing to protect our domestic manufacturing. Um, you know, the United States is still one of the best places in the world to do business. We have, like I said, a great workforce, strong regulatory environment, um, good infrastructure, uh, but you know, we're under intense competition from all over the globe, uh, particularly from Asia, but also you know, emerging markets that are able to bring products to market. Um, and without the stringent regulations that we might have here in the US or that the Europeans have, um, can bring a product to market much quicker, much cheaper. And using sort of the unique methods to get those products into the United States, they can do so at a much lower cost than we can produce here in the United States. And so I think being able to continue to push the US government um in and advocate for more protection for the for the US industry while also ensuring that we um candidly can continue to live in a global uh trade environment where we're able to bring in the critical raw materials that we need from overseas or that we can uh make sure that we can meet our meet our production demands here is key as well. And I think also just um better coordination with our international partners, you know, and I think working closer with the Europeans um with other uh with other trade partners to continue to foster a um a fair level playing field that works for all manufacturers. And then I think finally um just encouraging the US government and state and local governments as well to continue to push um funding opportunities and initiatives that help to support uh growth and innovation and make the US more competitive because a lot of these nascent technologies need a lot of investment in the front end, and the government can help with that.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

Yeah, sure, and this is growing so fast. We are setting the pace for the rest of the world. Thank you. Covestro, uh Daniel,

Circular Economy Beyond End Of Life

SPEAKER_00 7:40

has long emphasized the concept of a circular economy. What does circularity actually look like in practice and how close are we to achieving it at a scale?

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Yeah, that's a great question. So, circularity uh I think people tend to think of it as just what happens at the end of life. Um, but you have to look upstream and think about how we're better using our resources first to design a more efficient process to reduce our carbon emissions, to reduce the amount of energy that we use. So, Covestro just at the beginning, um, we are trying to use both recycled materials as well as bio-based materials as an alternative to fossil-based materials as our our main feedstocks that go into the chemicals and plastics that we produce. And those tend to have a benefit of, again, um using sort of a lower carbon resource, but also and you know, they can be renewable. So if we can source a agricultural waste, turn that into a feedstock, and then use that to make plastics, that's something that's regenerative and is that we can use over and over again. So that's important. Additionally, we try to use more renewable energy in our manufacturing, um, lower carbon energy, because our customers are coming to us, whether it's a mattress or you know, the auto manufacturers and saying they want products that are going into their um into their end products that have a lower carbon footprint. So beginning of the stage kind of starts, you know, in our manufacturing. What we do want to see at the end of the day, though, is more and more our materials after they've been used, when they've reached the end of life, when you've driven the car for 10, 13, 15 years and it's reached the end of life. So there are some parts of that that uh are commercialized. So I mentioned the headlights before. We can get that plastic back, we can grind it up and turn it into plastic and reuse it again. It can be a little bit more challenging, especially with automobiles, you know, trying to unscramble the egg, right? There's a lot of different resins, there's a lot of different materials that are contained in an automobile after it's been shredded up. Oftentimes the metals are what most companies are or sort of from a recycling standpoint, people are looking for. So different, we need different technologies that can take the plastics that might be in a polyurethane, break those back down to their basic chemical components, and then we can use those as raw materials to make new plastics and chemicals again. So there's a lot of work going on right now on sort of trying to create more of a circular economy. So I'd say we're more advanced on the upstream where we're reducing our uh carbon footprint, where we're being more efficient in our use of materials using alternative materials, and we've got to continue to work more on the downstream end-of-life parts so that we're getting those materials back, creating that supply chain and commercializing the technologies that can take them back to their basic chemical components.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

It's unbelievable how Covestro is recycling and uh taking care of everything in order to We're working on it. Yeah, that's great.

Materials For EVs And Data Centers

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Um Craig, as demand for energy infrastructure, data centers, electric vehicles, and advanced technologies continues to grow, how important is material science to meeting those challenges?

SPEAKER_02 11:01

Yeah, I think it's fundamental. So if you think Craig mentioned uh the um automobile example, you know, a new car, the average weight of a vehicle has gone up substantially in in recent years. Um the strain that that puts on roads, on parking garages, and so there's and on consumers' wallets with the need for more tires. So there's definitely a push in that in the industry to continue to add new lightweight materials that go all the way into the safety innovations in the vehicle as well. Um, you know, we can think of with AI, for example, that these massive data centers require intensive cooling. Um, and and the insulation that we create as an industry help to bring energy costs down and reduce energy consumption. Um also think of new homes. Uh, the uh the overall uh life cycle of a home is you know now 50 years, uh that that insulation is rated for to help uh continue to keep those energy costs lower. Um and then also if we think about um you know being able to meet all these different applications, like you said, so frame which the headlight, um, but thinking of all the different um temperature differentials on a on a train on a uh EV battery, for example, or um how that product has to react and maintain its um its ability um to not leak in an automobile accident, for example. Um so really making new advanced materials that are lighter, that are stronger. Questra has over 10,000 products in our catalog. Um so we have different applications for pretty much any um anything that that that we receive. We, you know, as Craig mentioned, also in the uh medical device sector, um wearable technology, uh, those thin films that we use. Um if you think too on um anti-counterfeiting uh for identification cards or for the US passport, for example, um those films are are so thin, but they allow allow us to make sure that those products can't be um uh counterfeited or duplicated. Um and so really trying to meet all of those demands requires a lot of different applications. And that's something that Cousin has been able to scale up and bring a lot of new technologies to market to meet those demands. Um and and you know, our customers demand this, right? They they come to us and with with problems and we give them solutions. Um a lot of the products that we bring to market um are very tailored, but they have applications across various industries.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

It's impressive to hear how many applications and how many solutions you provide in every such a different variety of fields. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

Our our company's slogan is you're never six feet away from comester.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Is that anywhere where you are not?

SPEAKER_02 13:43

That's a great question. I think so. The chemical in general touch about 96% of the manufacturing. It's uh really pretty much everywhere, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:52

Yeah. I think you're that's where you're saying.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Yeah, sorry, Daniel. I did I say the opposite? Oh, I apologize. That's okay. I apologize. Yeah, thank you. Great. Um innovation is happening faster

Breakthroughs In Sports And Leisure Gear

SPEAKER_00 14:10

than ever. What emerging technologies or breakthrough in material science are you most excited about that the public may not yet be paying attention to you?

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Yeah, it's a good question. Um I I would actually say, and I'm gonna maybe go off topic here a little bit, um, is that as someone who um maybe has a little bit more of a uh uh work-to-live kind of philosophy, uh, that Covestro, maybe unknown to a lot of folks, is involved in a lot of sports and leisure. And so there's a lot of exciting breakthroughs. You think about the technology. I mean, people don't think about the technology in a golf ball cover. Where we make um the plastics, that's the hard outer shell of a golf ball, and as someone who likes to golf and is excited and thinking that, hey, maybe I've gotten better when I'm hitting the ball further and straighter, or the putt actually drops in the hole, that it's all because you know I've improved my game. But part of it is just the technology continues to get better. And players on the PGA tour are using uh the golf ball or the the golf balls that are made from the plastics that that we make. We're also in things like tennis shoes, right? Important that we live a healthy uh lifestyle. You think of the foam cushioning in your shoes. So very important to get out there and exercise, and again, as as uh, you know, that also you know is a toll on your body. So the importance of health and protecting your back. And if you're getting old like me, you go off for a run now and you kind of uh you know, you tweak your your uh your calf, your hamstring. Um, so the importance of having good cushioning in the soles of those shoes, very important. Um, also think of ski boots. We are a plastic that's part of ski boots. Um, ski boots, I don't know, they're always seem to be uncomfortable for people with bigger feet like myself, but um, again, the importance of kind of protecting your legs. Um, and so the so the contribution that we make to sports and leisure and getting out there and being part of, you know, whether you're out for a run, whether you're out playing golf, whether you're out skiing down the mountain, you know, Covestro is playing a role in that. That's kind of the innovation that gets someone like me excited who likes to kind of do all three of those things.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

I'm excited too. They didn't know anything about this. And I play golf, I ski, and then I do. Yes, that's impressive. You should bring to the president who plays golf.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Or the dolom the dolomites, right, go skiing and that's beautiful there.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

Yeah. So, Daniel, yeah, there is often a perception that manufacturing

Sustainability As A Business Requirement

SPEAKER_00 16:35

and sustainability are competing priorities. How has the conversation changed? And what are companies doing today to demonstrate that economic growth and sustainability can advance together?

SPEAKER_02 16:48

Yeah, I think first off, the sustainability um it enables our production, right? It's it's it's we're we depend on um making sure that we can meet the demands for electric vehicles, AI data centers, um, and we have to do so in a way that that that is sustainable uh from front to end because our customers demand it. Um, you know, we have we have um um saying it's the right thing to do, but it's also right for our business. Um in the industry in the United States is is state of the art. A lot of our facilities are among the you know, production facilities are among the cleanest in the world, and we have a very um very integrated supply chain. Um and and you know, I think one other element that's that's key is that these investments that we make now in our facilities as an industry are just for now, but they're for the future. The life cycle of a chemical facility is over 50 years and they cost hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars to produce. So when they are produced, they're built with the technologies that will help to sustain them over that time period and allow us to continue to upgrade and continuously improve them to meet those demands. And again, just making sure that it's known that the technologies that are being deployed there are um are designed to enable these newer technologies that come along, come online all over the supply chain. Um, and so um I think changing the conversation from acknowledging that without manufacturing and without the US being a leader in that space, we can't really enable the sustainable future that we strive for.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Craig, uh looking globally, what are the biggest competitive advantages the United States has today, and where do we risk failing

US Advantages And The Energy Edge

SPEAKER_00 18:40

behind the manufacturing and industrial innovation?

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Um, I think sometimes we're too hard on ourselves here in the U.S. I and I think part of that though keeps us motivated to continue to innovate and work harder and stay ahead of global trends. And we have a lot of tremendous advantages here, and I think Covestro really capitalizes on many of those. I mean, number one from the standpoint is we have the greatest universities in the world here in the US, churning out sort of the next generation of the smartest, you know, um folks that will develop that new um material that will find a faster, better, easier process. Um, you look at the tremendous innovation that we continue to have, you know, now with AI here, you know, a lot of that comes from US companies. The the entrepreneurialism, I think, that's sort of embedded in the US and also uh also our venture capital and private equity that supports people who have a dream of creating a new business is unmatched in the world. And and that really creates an ecosystem of incredible talent and innovation here that that uh that uh you know we can capitalize on. Additionally, and and I think especially from the manufacturing uh world is energy. Um about I don't know, 15 years ago, essentially we really commercialized and learned how to take um shale gas out of rock, you know, buried deep in the ground. And that really turned uh the United States from a higher cost producer and really the lowest cost producer in the world. And there's so many different basic um chemicals and plastics that are derived from natural gas and from oil. So very important that has kept us a um a low-cost competitor. So it's great to see um the administration with a real focus on um low-cost energy, very important, especially for a you know, an energy-intensive industry that uses energy both as for its process but also as a raw material for the chemical manufacturing industry. But important to say we need all forms of energy, right? We want solar, we want wind, we want nuclear, um, we want geothermal, fossil energy, renewable energy, all of it is good energy. We need every single electron um that we can get right now, of course, to keep you know this low-cost manufacturing environment here. Um I think Dan touched on it a little bit before. I think fair trade rules are very important. That's something that's been a challenge that uh can keep us up at night sometimes. Um, just looking at uh our balance sheet as a country. I think if we can control spending, push down interest rates, you know, again, Covestro is in the business of uh uh automotive and building and construction are our two biggest markets. So lower interest rates gets people out there to maybe renovate their home or you know, um uh buy a new home. You know, people are staying in their homes longer right now because of you know higher interest rates, or buy a new car, being able to finance that to realize the American dream. So those are important. But again, I want to just state that we have some real tremendous advantages here with our universities, with the investment ecosystem that we have here, and of course with our with our energy.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Yes, I'm glad you mentioned energy because we see that we are reshaping the entire world about energy with everything we are doing. So that's great. Yeah, last question for you, Dania. If we were having

The Next Decade Automation And Permitting

SPEAKER_00 22:10

this conversation 10 years from now, what do you think would be the most significant transformation in manufacturing that people today are underestimating?

SPEAKER_02 22:20

Yeah, I think um manufacturing will adapt to the needs of the economy, right? And so um, you know, we're seeing a lot of automation across industries, uh, but we'll see that manufacturing will likely be smaller but more agile, um, and better technology will help to enable that. Um, you know, as we as a company and as an industry face a real deficit and work-based training for employees, uh, making sure that our workforce is trained and able to adapt these new technologies and deploy them. Um, so I think that's a key element where the US um is taking a leadership role, but needs to continue to push in that direction because um, you know, it's it is the case that historically these sites have become much smaller, but they produce much more volume, um, just given all the ability to have have these new technologies deployed. And I think one other interesting um element will be that supply chains will be more integrated and automated as well. And so we'll be able to get products faster to the market, quicker. Um, but we need a regulatory environment that enables all of that. And the US government has to keep up with the pace, and all governments have to keep up with the pace of innovation to make sure that we can bring products to market. I think one thing that we face as a challenge as an industry is that as we try to bring new chemicals to the market, the backlog for reviews or for permitting to build a new uh site expansion where we can make that product can take years. And then that time period where we may have lost several, several years to the uh to and not been able to bring that market product to the market in time. And so really um the US government needs to keep continue to be agile and help us to bring those to bring that new line of manufacturing um and prepare for the for the future then.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

Thank you. Thank you, Daniel, and thank you, Kate. Thank you and thank you because we put that attention on Covestro. And I personally learned so much, and I'm very grateful you decided to come and invest in the United States. And the best is ahead. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

You'll never look at your automobile the same way, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:27

Yeah, no, not only this, also the insulation when I is key and when yeah, you opened to me a new world. Thank you.