Leadership

Vinyl Groups Join Forces for Industrywide Sustainability Council

Led by the Vinyl Institute, 11 vinyl-related associations have come together to create the Vinyl Business and Sustainability Council to promote industrywide conservation efforts.

In light of a growing global population and the depletion of natural resources, the Vinyl Institute (VI) has spearheaded the creation of the Vinyl Business and Sustainability Council (VBSC) to bring the industry together in promoting and implementing best sustainability practices.

“With 10 billion people expected to inhabit our planet by 2050, and the underlying need to do more with less in light of depleting natural resources, vinyl has the opportunity to be the material of choice for many market segments served by our industry,” VI Vice President of Sustainability and new VBSC Executive Director Cristian Barcan said in a statement. “The VBSC is a collaborative platform for companies, organizations, and other industry stakeholders to come together to create a sustainable development path for the industry that includes balanced, science-based, continuous improvement practices that meet the needs of current and future generations.”

If we were going to be successful in this sustainability journey, we needed to engage those companies in our industry beyond just the vinyl resin producers.

Specifically, VBSC will create branded performance-improvement initiatives for the industry, educate companies working with the vinyl industry on those initiatives, and then review the results of the initiatives to ensure their success and continued relevance.

VI began work on the business council concept because the industry’s standing sustainability efforts weren’t being recognized, and because the institute’s sustainability strategic plan needed to involve the entire industry to be effective, VI President and CEO Dick Doyle explained. VI, however, only represents one segment: vinyl resin producers.

“If we were going to be successful in this sustainability journey, we needed to engage those companies in our industry beyond just the vinyl resin producers,” Doyle said.

At a VI summit held earlier this year, leaders from the 10 other vinyl-related associations joined the work on the council by sharing challenges related to sustainability. Customers of the vinyl industry also shared how the associations could be supporting their commitments to sustainability.

All 11 associations are invited to join VBSC free of charge, and membership has been opened to their members and other companies associated with the industry as well. Though it is a self-funded business council, the new group will have a governance structure and leadership separate from VI.

“We felt we needed a forum … where all those associations, all 11 including the Vinyl Institute, could come together and pursue our sustainability initiative for the overall vinyl industry,” Doyle said.

Currently, 1 billion pounds of vinyl is recycled each year, and Doyle said the council will help increase that number. Though the resources needed to make vinyl are still abundant, the initiatives will continue to enhance the recycling process and further incorporate recycled products into vinyl manufacturing.

“[The growing population] really calls upon society to do more with less, and that’s really what we’re striving to do through our commitment to sustainability and to current and future generations,” he said.

(iStock/Thinkstock)

Alex Beall

By Alex Beall

Alex Beall is an associate editor for Associations Now with a masters in journalism and a penchant for Instagram. MORE

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