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SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: VINYLPLUS®
LET’S TALK ABOUT

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

VinylPlus® is the Voluntary Commitment to sustainable fied deadlines, and reporting transparently the results in an
development by the European PVC industry. Launched 18 annual progress report, which is audited and verified by third
years ago, the commitment was developed through dia- parties. As a result, VinylPlus has become a concrete example
logue with stakeholders, including industry, NGOs, regula- of voluntary commitment that works in practice and provides a
tors, civil society representatives and PVC users. The pro- benchmark for other industry initiatives.
gramme covers the EU-28 plus Norway and Switzerland.
CONTROLLED-LOOP MANAGEMENT
The VinylPlus approach brings together businesses involved at One important target of the VinylPlus commitment is to recycle
all the different stages of the life cycle of PVC, from the produc- 800.000 tonnes of PVC per year by 2020. This required a con-
tion of virgin PVC, to manufacturers of PVC windows and count- trolled loop management, the installation of collection points
less other applications, and ultimately to recyclers. and the investment in recycling facilities across Europe. New
products containing more recyclates have to be developed and
The VinylPlus programme is committed to building awareness made known to the end user. In 2016, VinylPlus recycled al-
of the benefits of sustainability throughout the value chain and most 600.000 tonnes of PVC waste. Nearly 250.000 tonnes
among stakeholders both inside and outside the industry. Vi- of that volume originated from window profiles.
nylPlus is an example of just how successful voluntary action by
industry can be, with almost 3.6 million tonnes of PVC already SUSTAINABLE USE OF ADDITIVES
recycled since 2000. A major achievement was the replacement of lead-based sta-
bilisers for PVC applications in the EU-28 by the end of 2015.
Since the beginning of the programme, VinylPlus works with an VinylPlus has recently developed the “Additive Sustainability
independent Monitoring Committee made up of representa- Footprint” ASF, which allows VinylPlus partner companies in the
tives from the European Commission, the EU Parliament, trade profile sector to assess the additives they use throughout the
unions, academia and consumer organisations and is commit- whole product life cycle.
ted to delivering concrete and measurable targets within speci-

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