Reporting and Roadmapping with the BCF

Westminster played host to the British Coatings Federation (BCF) in December 2023 when the BCF launched a new report underlining the significance of the UK paint and coatings sector in industry, and to ask for the UK Government’s support in recognizing a variety of needs that ensure the sector will flourish in the modern industrial and post-Brexit trading environment.  

The report was launched at a meeting in the Cromwell Room of the Houses of Parliament, in a reception hosted by Paul Scully MP. The event was attended by a broad cross-section of CEOs, marketing, technical and regulatory directors from companies drawn from the UK paint and coatings and ink sectors.

Representatives from three government departments were there on behalf of the Department for International Trade, the Department for Business and Trade and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and a host of other trade associations in the UK also had delegates in attendance.

Five Key Asks for the UK Government

At the core of the BCF’s Essential Coatings report lie five important areas for the government to address in order for the sector to achieve its fullest potential contribution to the UK economy. These include:

• The need for regulatory and policy clarity and certainty for chemicals
• A long-term industrial strategy for manufacturing
• Support for businesses in the transition to net zero
• A long-term focus on skills and training
• Greater focus on improving post-Brexit trade.

All of these fundamentals are required in order to ensure continued growth for the industry.

Sector is a £4 Billion GDP Contributor

To underscore the importance of the UK paint and coatings sector, the BCF states that the sector contributes £4 billion to the UK economy every year and a further annual £1 billion in exports. However, the government’s apparent decision to prioritize three industry sectors in its strategy prompted BCF to champion the significance of all the other industries that the coatings and ink sector serve critically as part of the broader industrial and economic landscape.

Tom Bowtell, chief executive of the BCF said, “Building on our successful past and present, our sector looks to the future and we welcome the government’s recently published plan for advanced manufacturing. However, in setting such plans we must make sure that the multiplier – or enabler – industries, without which these advanced sectors could not function, are not left behind.

“The critical role of coatings, for instance, is evident in that downstream companies worth £300 billion a year rely on our products,” added Bowtell. “This holistic reality needs to be recognized in an integrated industrial strategy that supports all areas of British business. Aerospace, automotive, green energy, life sciences – all of these sectors rely on our members coatings and inks in one way or another to achieve their own successful end-result products, as well as on other key products from across the UK manufacturing supply chain.”

Two Tiers of Industry to be Recognized

The report seeks to shore up a greater level of backing from the government following the publication of its Advanced Manufacturing Plan, which appears to throw particular emphasis on the ‘advanced’ automotive, aerospace and green energy sectors. The BCF thinks that more could be done to include the critical roles played by other parts of industry that would lead to the creation of an integrated industrial strategy, one that better reflected a bedrock of UK coatings consumers in their entirety and without focusing on the original perceived advanced sectors.

One ‘Essential’ Report

The Essential Coatings report highlights a series of case studies that illustrate the significance of the contribution made by the UK coatings sector to industry, under the following four headings:
• Essentiality – coatings are everywhere, in and on everything and critical to the functioning of daily life
• Liveability – coatings protect, enrich and enhance the beauty of the world around us, and enable communication and self-expression
• Sustainability – coatings play an essential role in the transition to a sustainable future: prolonging the life of goods, vehicles and infrastructure; protecting and enabling renewable energy sources such as wind turbines and solar panels; and helping improve fuel efficiency
• Economy – the sector is one of the country’s manufacturing success stories: a net exporter, a generator of jobs and an integral contributor to the UK economy.

Zeroing in on the Net Zero Strategy

Last autumn the UK government also announced a revised Net Zero strategy for the UK, one that aimed to reduce national emissions to zero by 2050. Parts of it appear more relaxed than previously stipulated because the UK has over-achieved on its emissions reduction targets, having managed a 48% reduction. This places it ahead of Germany (41% fewer emissions), France (23% fewer) and the US (no reduction at all).

Not too long behind this announcement was a move from the BCF to launch a Net Zero Roadmap to outline how the UK coatings sector will reach Net Zero carbon emissions by 2050, with a 38% reduction in scope 1 and 2 emissions projected by 2030. The roadmap illustrates how the industry will play a key role in enabling the UK to achieve its national legislated Net Zero target.

The roadmap sets out how the BCF and its members aim to reach Net Zero, with projected reductions in scope 1 and 2 emissions of 53% by 2035 and 69% by 2040 as target points. It details four things that need to happen if the overall target is to be met:

• Better energy efficiency through renewable energy use and the development of low-carbon hydrogen
• Superior resource efficiency with modern products and technologies built on bio-based raw materials
• The development of carbon capture, utilization and storage networks
• Intensive supply chain collaboration and engagement, seeking to reduce scope 3 emissions.

Building on the BCF’s 2021 commitment to reach Net Zero by 2050, the roadmap outlines how the coatings sector intends to tackle its own emissions (scope 1) and those it creates indirectly (scope 2 and scope 3). It also estimates that the largest proportion of carbon emissions – 98% – are linked to members’ supply chains (scope 3) and are therefore more difficult to manage.

The roadmap clarifies that, while any emissions that cannot be eliminated must be balanced by finding ways to absorb an equivalent amount, the sector’s Net Zero strategy must minimize the use of carbon offsets, reserving the practice for unavoidable emissions only. It recognizes that different sub-sectors may need to move at different paces, since their energy needs and challenges are different.

Considerable input is required from the government for the BCF’s membership sectors to fulfil the Net Zero objectives and the BCF has made the following recommendations to the government:

• Create a secure environment for business to invest in more sustainable and Net Zero-related infrastructure. Clarity and certainty of policy is required, over the medium to long-term, if businesses are to be able to plan and invest in required major upgrades of equipment.
• This should include increased support to industry via the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund107, or newly created funds, to spur businesses on to developing and installing innovative new technology and processes leading to greater and faster decarbonization.
• Alternative measures might look at tax relief, or a deduction for capital expenditure, specifically on ‘green’ investments aimed at decarbonizing industrial processes.
• Measures to help SMEs recognize and meet their Net Zero goals would also be helpful. In particular, smaller companies need help in identifying their scope 3 emissions, as well as putting together an action plan to prioritize and tackle them. A scheme resembling Help to Grow108, which previously offered small-scale support to help businesses digitize, could instead provide vouchers or funding for SMEs to buy in Net Zero planning consultancy support or software.
• Simultaneously, government needs to continue with policies to scale up, at pace, emerging technologies such as low carbon hydrogen, carbon capture utilization and storage, and modular nuclear, which are essential for industry to be able to meet future Net Zero commitments.

As Make UK noted, “the UK needs to leverage its net zero ambitions to achieve greater energy independence, which in turn should keep energy bills stable and affordable. Achieving energy security requires a shift towards abundant, low carbon energy. Failure to implement low-carbon policies and reduce carbon emissions would put the UK’s energy security at risk.”

• Improve access to green skills across businesses, continuing to fund apprenticeships and incentivizing those that focus on climate and sustainability. This will support the training required to develop the knowledge, abilities, values and attitudes in order to implement more sustainable practices within business and society.

• Finally, chemicals regulations in the UK need to be clarified as soon as possible, ensuring that whatever process of registration and enforcement is put in place does not lead to new, sustainable substances being withheld from the UK market due to cost or bureaucracy. The current interim REACH NRES (New Registration of an Existing Substance) process is beginning to create just this negative situation and it needs resolving as a priority.