Matt Dobson, Vinyl Siding Institute | Notable Leaders in Sustainability 2023

Matt Dobson, a minimalist who majored in natural resources with construction management and went on to build log homes, might seem an unlikely advocate for vinyl as a building material, but he has been doing that passionately for almost 20 years.

Dobson heads the Revinylize Recycling Collaborative through the Alexandria, Va.-based Vinyl Siding Institute, where he was hired in 2004 as a director and now is the vice president with a major role in advocacy and regulatory affairs.

"I have been intrigued with plastics because of the innovation and creativeness that comes along with the material. It's been a great fit with my career in housing, affordability," said Dobson, who earned his bachelor's degree from Michigan State University.

At VSI, Dobson has worked on the development of the National Green Building Standard almost from the beginning. The rating system for homes and apartments — the only one approved by the American National Standards Institute — provides a blueprint for new and renovated residences with the certifications of bronze, silver, gold and emerald issued by Home Innovation Research Labs.

The research labs, an independent subsidiary of the National Association of Home Builders, opened in 1964 as part of a mission to perfect the home in every aspect, including quality, efficiency and affordability.

In his roles, Dobson helped publish the first product category rules for cladding, which then resulted in the publication of one of the first environmental product declarations for the industry.

For him, it's all about helping the plastics and construction industries use science to reduce impacts on the environment.

"We continue to push the sustainability and resiliency science, with the foundation being reduced environmental impact with sound economic and social balance," Dobson said.

He thinks about these topics all the time, not just related to plastics at work.

"I have embraced a minimalist lifestyle, which is a major component to improving impact on the environment," Dobson said.

As a skiing and hiking enthusiast, he added, "The outdoors make you appreciate and respect Mother Earth."

Dobson describes himself as "somewhat worried" about the environment, and he said he believes corporations have a great deal of responsibility in protecting it.

For one of his next projects, Dobson is overseeing VSI's rollout of the Revinylize Recycling Collaborative in January 2024. The initiative aims to make it easier to recycle post-consumer rigid vinyl materials like siding, pipes, decks, railings and windows. The low-cost, easy-to-install products can be recycled into more building products up to eight times without losing their durability.

Some vinyl siding could be ready for its second life. Census officials have been tracking use of the building product since 1992, when it had 23 percent of primary exterior wall share on new home.

Vinyl siding then began a decadelong climb, peaking on new home exteriors in 2002 with a 40 percent share of the distribution. (It's back to about 24 percent of primary exterior building materials for single-family houses.)

"That first generation of vinyl siding may be coming to end of useful life," Dobson said. "There's going to be a concentration of product that can be recycled and that's what we're going after."

To prepare, VSI is bringing together recyclers and collection sites such as distributors and landfills, following a successful pilot program in Ohio this year funded with a grant from the Washington-based Vinyl Institute, which represents U.S. PVC resin manufacturers.

VSI's Vinyl Siding Coalition used its funding to develop a governance structure and create an operational tracking system that collected more than 525,000 pounds of post-consumer residential vinyl siding for recycling, usually into siding or decking.

The initiative aligns with the recycling goals of the Vinyl Institute, an umbrella trade group, to recycle 5 million pounds of post-consumer rigid vinyl in 2025.

The pilot program will be expanded nationally as the Revinylize Recycling Collaborative with a VI grant awarded to target more markets where vinyl siding has had a significant presence on homes for 50 years or more.

To that end, the collaborative is looking for partners in Michigan, the Northeast, Toronto, North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee to join the movement.

An emerging innovation that Dobson is watching involves shifting landfills to recycling centers. He points to some success at Rosby Recycling Cleveland.

"It's an easy conversion model which can also create a new business stream for landfills," he said.

Dobson describes one of his big challenges as "knowing our products are the most sustainable in the market if you look at facts and science."

"Unfortunately, facts and science don't always lead the way, and the challenge of creating understanding of how vinyl is so sustainable is still a challenge," Dobson said. "We must persist with science and facts. If we don't, our goals towards sustainability will fall short."

Dobson's advice to the industry: "Continue to innovate and focus on a circular economy and plastics will show it's true sustainability attributes."