BCF Blog - The Year Ahead

Tom Bowtell, Chief Executive

So what can we expect in 2020?

It’s the start of a new decade and as a country we are heading out of the European Union at the end of January. We’ll be looking for ways to maximise the benefits of leaving, whilst not damaging our important trading relationships with the EU. BCF will be heavily involved in discussing the future trading relationship for the chemical supply chain and coatings industry during the year, to ensure we don’t go into 2021 faced with tariffs, regulatory borders and an unaligned chemical regulatory system.

It’s also a big year for major regulatory issues we’ve been dealing with in the EU. It’s likely that titanium dioxide will be classified in February, albeit in its powder form only, but this will set a dangerous precedent for other similar substances, and still have a major impact on the coatings industry. We will be considering our options as to how we can best challenge and limit the impact of what we feel is a pretty ludicrous classification.  We will also be working hard to defend biocides, and other key non substitutable raw materials.

In terms of major projects where the BCF can be proactive, 2020 is going to be the year for PaintCare. By the middle of the year, the industry will have considered how it can best help solve the issue of left over decorative paint in the UK, which amounts to make an eye watering 50 million litres of leftover paint per year, 98% of which is still landfilled or incinerated.  Through taking a leadership role in this area, the coatings industry aims to vastly improve the waste hierarchy of left over paint, with significantly scaled up activity to reuse and remanufacture left over paint back into paint, or to convert into a raw material for other products.

BCF will also look to tackle other major issues, such as the mis-selling of industrial coatings over the internet to consumers. In many cases, products are not properly identified as hazardous, and safety data sheets are not provided to end-users via the internet, which is a legal requirement. Consumers are often not informed that the products on offer are recommended for professional use only, and to be used with health and safety precautions such as an air fed mask in the case of certain car repair paints.

Sustainability in general will be going up the agenda, and BCF will be re-starting its Sustainability Committee in the spring. The coatings industry has a great story to tell in terms of its record in reducing solvent emissions (VOCs or volatile organic compounds), and we have to get this message more clearly articulated in the media and to government. Coatings also have a crucial role to extend the life of natural resources, such as concrete steel and wood, and in my view we are carbon positives a industry. However, we have to quantify and articulate this more clearly.

Looking more internally, we are in the process of recruiting some new team members, and we have started updating our five year roadmap, with a first presentation to the BCF Board of Directors taking place in February.

That’s only scratching the surface of what can be a really busy year for the BCF. Whatever happens, whatever we do, we’ll be fighting the industry’s corner.