Vinyl Institute launches sustainability program

A new initiative to advance sustainability efforts throughout the vinyl industry launched June 3 at the Sustainable Brands conference in Detroit.

The effort, called +Vantage Vinyl, is being spearheaded by the Vinyl Sustainability Council, which was created in 2016 by the Washington-based Vinyl Institute to promote best practices and innovation.

"Vantage Vinyl is the industry's path to advance sustainable development throughout the supply chain," Ned Monroe, president and CEO of the Vinyl Institute, said in a news release.

The program's goals are to meet customer demand for responsibly sourced products and materials as well as reduce companies' environmental footprints. For starters, participants will focus on landfill diversion, health and safety, and emissions.

The trio of targets was selected from the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals as arenas where the U.S. vinyl industry can make an impact, VSC Executive Director Cristian Barcan said in a phone interview. A task force will oversee each target, creating goals and key performance indicators to encourage the owners of nearly 3,000 vinyl manufacturing facilities to participate.

Some progress has been made, said Barcan, who is also the vice president of sustainability and industry affairs for the Vinyl Institute. However, much more can be achieved, he added.

Specific goals involve pushing recycling efforts beyond the 1.1 billion pounds of vinyl recycled annually in the U.S. and Canada; increasing emphasis on workplace health and safety initiatives and product stewardship policies designed to minimize user exposures; and identifying ways to continue reducing direct emissions from production plants.

Companies that contribute to these goals on an annual basis will be eligible to use the Vantage Vinyl trademark.

"We're working with stakeholders to create preferences for participating companies," Barcan said. "If a retailer or brand owner have their own sustainability goals, selecting a supplier with Vantage Vinyl will help you reach those goals."

One major stakeholder, Lowe's, is on board as a VSC member.

"Their involvement is good news," Barcan said. "They use a lot of products either made of vinyl or with vinyl so they have a vested interest. Because of their support, we've had great success with suppliers of Lowe's paying attention."

Participating companies will select one goal annually in each of the three impact categories. Vantage Vinyl is partnering with GreenCircle Certified LLC to verify and report on what they achieve.

Currently about 1.1 billion pounds of vinyl are recycled annually, most of that pre-consumer. Barcan said the post-consumer rate has increased 40 percent since 2014 thanks to more roofing, roofing membrane and flooring manufacturers creating takeback programs.

Still, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says about 1.4 billion pounds of vinyl is being landfilled every year.

"If you consider 1.1 billion pounds recycled vs. 1.4 billion pounds landfilled, we're at about a 40 percent recycling rate, which isn't bad," Barcan said. "But we need to do something about that 1.4 billion pounds, which is a fraction — it's about 3 percent — of all the plastics that get landfilled. Vinyl doesn't play a huge role in the big picture, but nevertheless it's a quantity we can put back to use."

The next step is to find out what vinyl products are being landfilled and what is possible to divert.

"We're doing studies and surveys right now," Barcan said. "Our hope is at the beginning of 2020 we sit with the industry and create targets, based on facts, that are aspirational and achievable."

The program also calls for protecting the health and safety of the 350,000 vinyl industry employees, the residents in the communities where the 3,000 manufacturers are located and vinyl product users. In some respects, the upstream facilities are leading the way, Barcan said.

"If you look upstream, 25 percent of the production facilities have five years or more of zero reportable accidents to OSHA," Barcan said. "If you look at the manufacturing record overall and the chemical industry record, this is absolutely stellar."

As for emissions, the resin producers have reduced the release of vinyl chloride by 84 percent since 1987 while production has increased by 99 percent. The use of new technology and backward integration made that possible, Barcan said

"There may be other emissions we can act on," he added. "We'll see if there's anything else we can do throughout the value chain."

The effort comes at a time when concerns are mounting about natural resource depletion, land management, clean water and climate change.

The voluntary collaboration shows a commitment to make sure the industry's future is a sustainable one, Barcan said.

"We're predicted to need three planets' worth of natural resources to meet the needs of the 10.5 billion global population in 30 years. That's just not sustainable," Barcan said. "Vinyl can help meet the needs of this exploding population and our declining resources."

He noted that PVC is made from two materials — natural gas and rock salt — that are in good supply. He also pointed out that the products made from the resin have many roles in the food supply chain in terms of irrigating crops, packaging produce, and delivering clean water for drinking and cooking.

"Consider that a large part of our growing population will live in urban areas so there will be opportunities to grow food on top of buildings," Barcan said of an emerging trend of rooftop farming and its need for lightweight irrigation pipes.

About 70 percent of PVC resin goes into the building and construction applications, and 45 percent of that is pipe, he added.

Barcan would like to grow Vantage Vinyl membership to 50 percent of the industry in the next few years, which he said should drive the other businesses to at least take some steps to be more sustainable.

Vantage Vinyl costs $10,000 a year for membership and $5,000 a year for the green certification audit. VI said the benefits include improved customer relations, employee morale, company reputation and possibly financial results.

Membership is open to U.S. companies that are resin and additive suppliers, compounders, product manufacturers, equipment manufacturers, recyclers and distributors. Founding members include Occidental Chemical Corp., Shintech Inc., Westlake Chemical Corp., Formosa Plastics Corp., Sika Corp., Chemours Co., Mexichem and PolyOne Corp.

"There's a lot of excitement about it," Barcan said. "The plastics industry needs to do something. There has been no formal approach as we've seen with cleaning the ocean. Each company has been doing its own thing. Now an industry is coming together to address these issues and to humbly say we've done a lot but there's more to do to contribute to sustainable development."