VinylPlus®, the Voluntary Commitment to sustainable development of the European PVC industry, recycled 739,525 tonnes of PVC within its framework in 2018 – a 15.6% increase on the previous year. The results were presented at the 2019 edition of the VinylPlus Sustainability Forum in Prague, Czech Republic, where the industry shared further progress towards increasing the sustainability performance of PVC.

Held on May 9th and 10th, this year’s theme ‘Accelerating Innovation’ examined the challenges and opportunities presented by new technologies in shaping the PVC sector’s future in the context of the circular economy.

The Forum attracted more than 170 participants from 32 countries including representatives from the European Commission, European Parliament, the Czech Ministry of Environment, the United Nations, NGOs, academia, specifiers, designers, recyclers and the PVC value chain. Presentations and panel discussions by top-level experts revolved around the three sustainability pillars - economic, social and environmental - and how innovation is impacting the PVC industry and its journey to sustainable development.

Despite regulatory constraints, VinylPlus General Manager Brigitte Dero announced that the PVC industry recycled an all-time high of nearly 740,000 tonnes – 92.4% of the VinylPlus’ 2020 target. Recovinyl remains the main contributor, registering 734,568 tonnes of recycled PVC. Cumulatively, almost 5 million tonnes of PVC have been recycled since 2000.

Reflecting on the Forum, Brigitte Dero concluded: “For almost 20 years, VinylPlus has led the way towards a circular economy by improving the sustainability performance of PVC. By forging ever-greater collaborations and partnerships in pursuit of our sustainability goals, we will take our industry voluntary commitment to ever greater heights.”

For more information on VinylPlus’ achievements in 2018, check our Progress Report 2019 at https://vinylplus.eu/documents/51/59/VinylPlus-Progress-Report-2019.

On 19 January 2018, the European social partners of the chemical industry, industriAll European Trade Union (industriAll Europe) and the European Chemical Employers Group (ECEG) launched the EU financed social partner project entitled “The impact of innovation and digital transformation in the workplace: a sector-specific study of the European chemical, pharmaceutical, rubber and plastics industry”.

In order to implement the project objectives, a cooperation was established with the research institute, Prognos AG. The institute conducted an EU-wide research study – including desk research, a survey, and expert interviews – to showcase the current level of digital awareness in the chemical, pharmaceutical, rubber and plastics sectors, as well as to assess the impact of innovation and digital transformation on workers’ competences/skills needs, working patterns and on health and safety. Around 500 respondents from above mentioned sectors and different EU Member States completed the survey alongside 30 expert interviews.

Preliminary research results were presented during the first conference “Our Future Workplace – Digital transformation in the chemical industry” on 18 – 19 October 2018, Tallinn. The preliminary findings show that job transformation is more likely than job reductions for the chemical, pharmaceutical, rubber and plastics industry.

While workforce in some company divisions is at risk of losing jobs (especially in administration and accounting), new job opportunities are likely to arise in IT-services, R&D or management. The working environment will move towards increased mobile working and collaboration in heterogenous and interdisciplinary teams. Digital transformation in the sector is expected to reduce the number of hazardous tasks though this might increase the level of psychological stress. Overall, the general health of employees is expected to stay the same or to improve slightly.

Moreover, the research findings have shown increased relevance and importance of the social dialogue, particularly of collective agreements where such topics as working-time flexibility and mobile working will be increasingly dealt with in the next five years. At the same time, qualification, data protection and performance monitoring will need greater consideration.

Finally, the preliminary results show that a skills shift is clearly visible. Whereas basic digital skills broadly exist, advanced technical[1] digital, social[2] and transversal skills[3] will require more attention.

Those results will be more extensively explained with the publication of the final report in the following months. The final research survey results will be used as basis to formulate a social partner joint action plan on how to anticipate, prepare and manage change in the workplace as a result of innovation and digital transformation in three domains: skills, working patterns and health & safety.

The project website with more information is available here in three languages (EN, FR, DE).

[1] Technical skills: Use of IT-tools (use of software to process and store information) and Big Data analysis (skills for in-depth analysis and interpretation of large amounts of data)

[2] Social skills: The ability to work in multi-disciplinary teams, self-learning and adaptability

[3] Transversal skills are skills that are typically considered as not specifically related to a particular job, task, academic discipline or area of knowledge and that can be used in a wide variety of situations and work settings (e.g. critical and innovative thinking).

For more information contact:

Maike F. Niggemann

Maike.Niggemann@industriall-europe.eu

T: +32 2 226 00 53

M: +32 474 981 724

Emma Argutyan

e.argutyan@eceg.org

T: +32 2 238 97 73

M: +32 493 093 273

Season’s greetings from the whole team at VinylPlus®!

2018 may be drawing to a close, but VinylPlus still has plenty of news to keep you updated with: the latest on our successes, projects we support and activities from the EU Institutions. In this end-of-year edition, innovative recycling solutions and achievements take centre stage, but we’re also giving you an update on what the VinylPlus Sustainability Forum 2019 has in store for you… Keep reading to find out more!

In this issue we must also bid farewell to our Chairman Josef Ertl, to whom we owe a huge THANK YOU! What a journey we have shared – Vinyl 2010 and VinylPlus. It has not always been an easy road, but thanks to your tireless dedication and invaluable experience, we have grown into a vibrant and innovative industry with a clear view of our future.

With all endings come new beginnings, so we would like to take the opportunity to welcome our new Chairman Stefan Sommer. He arrives at an exciting time and we look forward to building the future of VinylPlus together. In other news, we would also like to announce that VinylPlus is moving!

As of December 17th the VinylPlus offices will be located at Avenue de Cortenbergh 71, 1000 Brussels.

You can download the newsletter here.

VinylPlus secures PVC’s place at heart of the Circular Economy

Since 2000, VinylPlus, the voluntary commitment to sustainable development of the European PVC industry, has been a pioneer in the Circular Economy. It has backed the European Commission’s pledging call to increase recycling of plastics by committing to recycle at least 900,000 tonnes of PVC per year into new products by 2025, a significant contribution to the overall 10 million tonnes objective set by the Commission for the plastic industry. Looking further ahead, VinylPlus has also committed to recycling a minimum of 1 million tonnes per year by 2030.

“For nearly 20 years, VinylPlus has led the way to a circular economy by improving the sustainability performance of PVC. Because our programme brings together the entire value chain - PVC manufacturers, additives producers, converters and recyclers - we responded immediately to the Commission’s call for voluntary pledges from the plastics industry. We welcome this initiative, which highlights the foresight shown by VinylPlus in establishing its first voluntary commitment.” says Brigitte Dero, VinylPlus’ General Manager.

Thanks to VinylPlus’ unique role in engaging an entire value chain, the voluntary commitment has succeeded in recycling more than 4 million tonnes of PVC since 2000.

PVC is made from salt and oil or natural gas and is one of the most widely used plastics in the world with a wide range of applications such as window frames, pipes, flooring, cables, packaging, sport equipment, furniture and medical devices.

Ensuring targets are met is of paramount importance to VinylPlus’ success. Recycled volumes are verified by an independent auditor and presented to the VinylPlus Monitoring Committee, composed of representatives of the European Commission, European Parliament, consumer organisations, trade unions, academia and industry.

What is the actual level of digital transformation in the chemical, pharma, rubber and plastics industry? What is the exact impact of innovation and digital transformation on the workers’ skills, working conditions or their health & safety in these same sectors?

In the frame of the cooperation between VinylPlus and The European Chemical Social Partners (ECEG and industriALL), you can take part in the study on "Digital transformation in the workplace - a sector-specific study on the European chemical, pharmaceutical, rubber, and plastic industry."

Are you a manager, industry representative, labour representative, employee or a representative from a sector specific union in the chemical, pharma, rubber or plastics industry? Then we invit

e you to participate in the survey. Your participation will make an important contribution to understanding the impacts of digital transformation within the chemical industry at European scale.

Click here to take the survey: https://survey.prognos.com/index.php/446339?lang=en

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Thank you for attending the 2018 VinylPlus Sustainability Forum! We hope you enjoyed discovering more about the PVC industry not only in Europe but globally, gained more insights on how PVC meets societal needs, and created new (and sustainable) networks.

As usual, we launched this year’s Progress Report at the Forum. The results are impressive: we recycled nearly 640,000 tonnes of PVC in 2017, corresponding to an 11% increase from 2016! We also made substantial progress in the key sustainability challenges identified for PVC.

Find out more in this !

At the VinylPlus Sustainability Forum in Madrid, on the 16th of May, the new Progress Report 2018 was presented to more than 140 stakeholders.

The Report summarises VinylPlus’ progress and achievements in 2017 in each of the five key sustainability challenges identified for PVC in the Voluntary Commitment of the European PVC industry on the basis of The Natural Step (TNS) System Conditions for a Sustainable Society.

You can download the new Progress Report 2018 and access the interactive PDF onlinehere.

VinylPlus, the Voluntary Commitment to sustainable development of the European PVC industry, recycled 639,648 tonnes of PVC within its framework last year. The 2017 results were presented at its 6th VinylPlus Sustainability Forum 2018 in Madrid, Spain where the industry shared its latest sustainability achievements.

This year’s forum held on May 16th and 17th took the theme of ‘Meeting Societal Needs’ and explored how the vinyl sector and its products can help to meet the wide-ranging challenges of providing essential services for a growing global population in areas such as healthcare, housing and related infrastructure.

The forum attracted more than 140 stakeholders from 30 countries representing the European Commission, European Parliament, the United Nations, consumer organisations, academia, specifiers, designers, architects, recyclers and the PVC value chain.

Welcoming delegates, VinylPlus Chairman Josef Ertl said: “VinylPlus is special because it is the successful voluntary commitment of the entire PVC value chain, including resin manufacturers, additive producers and PVC converters, co-operating with the recyclers. All are working together towards a sustainable society with PVC. With VinylPlus, the European PVC industry has set clear and ambitious goals and we are well on our way to achieving them.”

Presenting the 2017 results, VinylPlus General Manager Brigitte Dero highlighted key achievements within the VinylPlus framework, which included the recycling of 639,648 tonnes of PVC last year – almost 80% of the 2020 target. Recovinyl remained the main contributor, registering 633,127 tonnes of recycled PVC, with increased volumes recorded in France and Italy. Cumulatively, 4.2 million tonnes of PVC have been recycled since 2000.

Brigitte Dero commented: “With the adoption of the European Commission’s ‘Strategy for Plastics in the Circular Economy’, recycling is gaining a more prominent place and will have a strong influence on the entire plastics value chain.”Adding that “as a united industry, we have made real progress through our VinylPlus Voluntary Commitment to increase the sustainability performance of PVC. VinylPlus continues to invest in, facilitate and transform the recycling of PVC in line with Europe’s circular economy strategy.”

VinylPlus is the Voluntary Commitment of the European PVC industry. The programme establishes a long-term framework for the sustainable development of the PVC industry by tackling a number of critical challenges in the EU-28, Norway and Switzerland.

For more information on VinylPlus achievements in 2017, download the Progress Report 2018 .

We want to keep Connecting you on the latest VinylPlus® news and all our achievements. VinylPlus Connect brings you the latest on our achievements, some of the projects we support and finance, as well as the latest communication materials created. It also provides updates on the activities from the EU institutions and how VinylPlus® actively participates in the debate.

We look forward to seeing you all in Madrid in May for the 2018 VinylPlus Sustainability Forum. Register here!

Download the VinylPlus Connect Newsletter March 2018 !

This VinylPlus® member-only newsletter reflects our commitment to continuously evolve and be closer to you as our partners.

A new vision and mission for VinylPlus® In December 2016, the VinylPlus Board adopted a new vision and mission for VinylPlus® in line with our new Strategy Paper towards 2020. These renewed vision and mission statements are instrumental to guide our organisation’s decisions, strategies and tactics.

This first edition of VinylPlus Connect is a trial and we encourage you to share your feedback with us so that we can continuously improve our communication and collaboration with you. Contact us at info@vinylplus.eu and let us know your thoughts! We hope to see you at the VinylPlus Sustainability Forum in Berlin.

Download the VinylPlus Connect Newsletter May 2017 !

A world where rapidly rising population, resource depletion and pollution challenge efforts to sustainably meet human needs. Core challenges include meeting human fresh water and food needs, especially in context of a changing climate. Also healthcare, housing and related infrastructure. Can a hierarchy of needs be identified? If so, how could this help set government and industry policy priorities in the period to 2030? 2050?What might a shared social vision be? How might it be achieved?What are the current enablers/disincentives and how can these be better aligned/made consistent with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? What is required of regulators, industry, investors and civil society?

At the VinylPlus Sustainability Forum 2018, in Madrid, Spain, we will share visions of the potential of PVC to deliver on sustainable prosperity. Highlighting examples of key sectors/products/services, we will develop a compelling narrative of how PVC must be part of the sustainability/circular economy/material efficiency story. Special emphasis in this context will be given to consumer goods.We will address the adequacy of the current policy framework (EU, global, local) for enabling PVC to play its full potential role in achieving the SDGs.We will demonstrate how wonderfully PVC meets societal needs. We're waiting to see you in Madrid!

Register here for VinylPlus Sustainibility Forum!

This Report summarises VinylPlus'® progress and achievements in 2016 in each of the five key sustainability challenges identified for PVC in the Voluntary Commitment of the European PVC industry on the basis of The Natural Step (TNS) System Conditions for a Sustainable Society.All the information reported has been independently audited and verified by third parties. A full glossary of abbreviations appears at the end of the Progress Report.

Download the