Eric Cotterman, Cornerstone Building Brands | Notable Leaders in Sustainability 2023

Eric Cotterman began his career in plastics as a third-generation installer in the family's roofing, siding and windows business in Shelby County, Ohio.

After graduating with a mechanical engineering degree from Wright State University, he worked for a heating and cooling company then returned to exterior building products at what was to become one of the largest manufacturers in North America.

Cotterman accepted a marketing/training position within Ply Gem industries in 2008. He was a product/installation trainer through 2017, when he became a senior product/installation/sustainability manager.

Ply Gem became Cornerstone Building Brands in 2018, and Cotterman was asked to lead and expand sustainability in the vinyl siding division with internal life cycle analysis (LCA) and expansion of environmental product declarations (EPD) for a portfolio of products.

With $3.42 billion in annual sales, CBB is the second-largest pipe, profile and tubing extruder in North America, according to Plastics News' rankings.

In 2021, Cotterman oversaw the LCAs and EPDs across all CBB vinyl manufacturing plants, and in 2022, he created an LCA/EPD for a new product being launched in 2024 nationwide.

"The use of the LCAs was to drive sustainability messaging within our customer base," he said. "They also served as a baseline of the Vinyl Siding Institute industrywide EPDs in vinyl, insulated siding and polypropylene."

While most homeowners have no idea what LCAs and EPDs say or why they're important, others make decisions on products based on the data collected.

"Other than creating efficiencies within our company, the biggest stakeholders to these documents are the specifiers, architects and builders that need/want to stay below a certain amount of carbon footprint outputs with projects they are working on," Cotterman said.

It's an important time for the vinyl siding industry, he added.

"As more cities are creating carbon reduction goals — and vinyl siding has a great story on carbon and recyclability — these projects are trying to stay in front of these demands and to make sure our products do not become deselected from those stakeholders," Cotterman said.

At CBB, Cotterman said at first he underestimated the undertaking of comparing operations between the siding plants in terms of usage of water, electricity, waste streams, motors and equipment.

"My biggest failure with sustainability was thinking that the manufacturing sites were collecting and recording the correct data in the right way in order to pull data sets for analysis," Cotterman said.

He understands the hurdles now. The frameworks for sustainable practices and environmental, social and governance framework can be complex and hard to follow for those who are not actively involved with the process, Cotterman said.

"Is the plant pulling water out of ponds or water resources on the property that lessen the amount of fresh water that is needed? What kind of recycling is the plant doing? We're basically trying to get a holistic view of the day-to-day operations to create efficiencies as well as getting the data set for the LCA/EPD analysis."

Cotterman found a way to pull everyone in the same direction.

"Creating monthly webinars that explain each stage of the LCAs, EPDs, and how that equates to sales at the field level in a systematic and cohesive manner that our supply chain can easily understand has been a great success," he said.

After a baseline of data was established, CBB could set plant-level goals aimed at driving improvement through environmental metrics.

In 2022, Cotterman said CBB improved data tracking across the organization using different platforms to better manage waste, water and greenhouse gas emissions.

Based in Sydney, Ohio, a state with a coalition of businesses and trade groups focused on recycling vinyl, Cotterman said his job entails understanding the needs of the entire value chain and creating solutions at each level to move it forward.

"We in the vinyl siding industry have made huge improvements from raw materials, to zero waste facilities, internal take-back programs and even a new VSI recycling program."

Outside of CBB, Cotterman chairs the VSI sustainability committee and the Vinyl Sustainability Council, which is part of the Vinyl Institute, sitting on both the leadership team and advisory board.

In January, VSI will roll out a national program for recycling rigid vinyl material following a successful pilot program in northeast Ohio. The national program, which will be called Revinylize Recycling Collaborative, is expected to divert millions of pounds of rigid vinyl from the landfill to factories for reprocessing into new rigid building materials like siding.

"The creation and continuous improvement of a circular economy requires the plastics industry to first and foremost understand current challenges and also the challenges in the future," Cotterman said. "This understanding comes from within all sectors of our value chain as well as outside experts to truly understand the totality of sustainability at all levels."

To stay abreast, Cotterman also belongs to the National Association of Home Builders and attends industry events, board meetings, committees and work groups. He also returned to school twice — once to earn a bachelor's degree in marketing and then a master's degree in digital marketing in 2022, both from Southern New Hampshire University.

To further expand sustainability efforts, Cotterman said, "I believe the plastics industry needs to continue creating engaging, creative and simplistic approaches to educate the value chain and consumers the impacts that plastics can create within our communities we work and play in."