Industry Insight Seminars

Duncan will explore the critical carbon reduction areas for the coatings industry with reference to the BCF’s Net Zero Roadmap alongside AkzoNobel’s own Net Zero journey. He will pull out examples of the journey up to now but primarily focus on the challenges that lie ahead.

As the environmental impact of everyday items is understood to a greater degree, the need for a greener, more ‘eco’ decorative products becomes a key selling point to the end consumer. At the risk of confusing the consumer with the mass amount of green claims that a company’s marketing may use regarding the ‘green’ credentials of their decorative products might look impressive but there is a need to clarity if the green claim is relevant or if it might be too ambiguous and could cause misunderstanding to the consumer. If you produce or aim to produce an ‘eco’ paint then the Do’s and Don’ts of decorative paint is a must see.

2024 is to be a year of reckoning for Defra’s collection and packaging reforms. Despite being 5 years into the process, the scale of work to introduce EPR has never been greater and there are constant updates coming out of government on the timing and impacts of EPR on businesses across the supply chain. George’s presentation will cover the basics of EPR and discuss the state of play as we move closer to its implementation across the UK.

The chemical industry is at the forefront of sustainable development. With increasing societal and regulative pressures to adopt and achieve sustainability, businesses needs to be well informed and equipped on their sustainability journey. This session will look at the challenges businesses face in the current sustainability landscape and the potential collaboration has in helping to achieving sustainability.

In the current climate of international unrest companies need increased vigilance within the supply chain they service, to reduce potential risks to their reputation and/or prosecutions from the misuse of a chemical they supply.

There are a number of substances subject to strategic export controls (trade controls) on an international level but also nationally, such as EU and UK, which require differing degrees of paperwork and processes in place to ensure compliance. It is therefore vital that companies keep up to date with the changes to prevent delays, enforcement action or ‘bad press.’

In this presentation Doug will outline how CBA’s Code of Conduct on trade controls for chemicals was designed to help companies understand their obligations and the requirements of the legislation. Not only will Doug explain the code, its rationale and provide the detail to guide participants through their obligations and requirements of the legislation. It will also update delegates regarding the regulatory changes following the end of the transition period and the UK exiting the EU

• Chemical Weapons
• Drug Precursors
• Explosive precursors
• Dual Use
• GB Regulatory Update

Elaine’s presentation covers some of the issues and challenges faced in recent years by the UK Chemical industry.  With all the uncertainty in UK chemical regulation, Elaine will look at what may potentially be coming in the future and how business can plan for this.

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Paint and Coatings Sales Trends

This short talk will cover sales trends in our industry looking at the UK markets for decorative paints, woodcare, industrial coatings and printing inks. We will look at how these markets have changed since pre-covid up to spring 2024. Our talk will also consider some of the key macro-economic drivers of demand, including where available any forecasts for 2024 and into 2025.

• Current regulatory model and the predicted impacts to UK chemical using sectors.
• Pros and cons of alternative regulatory models.
• Divergence from the EU and looking to the future.

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A real company view of the complications and challenges of the approval process for Biocidal Products both in the UK and Europe. Where the main costs arise, decisions and risks that are associated and how can improvements be made in the process to encourage innovation

Certain solvent based inks have a propensity to form peroxides with time.  This can lead to degradation of printer components, dyes and other changes to ink chemistry leading to issues with print quality.  This presentation describes a novel procedure for the quantitation of peroxides.  The procedure utilises the fact that organic peroxides oxidise nitrites to yield nitrates.  The quantitation of nitrates by ion exchange chromatography facilitates the estimation of peroxide concentration.  Additionally, we show the calculation of reaction order, rate constant, reciprocal half life and activation energy.

Overview of the divergence between the CLP legislation in the EU and GB, with a focus on SDS Authoring and  labelling and the impact this has on a chemicals business trading in both GB and EU.

The areas of change within our personal and business lives are growing rapidly, whether it is climate change, workforce demographics, increasing world population, conflict, new technology, security threats or even the unexpected. There has never been a more important time, or a more crucial role for trade associations to play.

During this session experts from the Chemical Business Association will, outline how the above issues will affect the chemical supply chain in the coming years, and how the association is currently helping members navigate these issues. They will also summarise the new initiatives the CBA has recently launched to help ensure the chemical supply chain can meet the demands that will be placed upon it in the future.

There will be several short presentations followed by a panel session with opportunity for the audience to ask questions and be part of the debate.

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We are all keen to reduce our carbon footprint and become more sustainable. During this presentation Ciara will share some practical tips on how to reduce the impact on the environment when painting.

Sometimes in our desire to improve we can forget why we started to do things in the first place.  This talk is a reminder of the reasons we use biocides in paint and the important role (s) they play