4 minute read
Director General’s Report
We have been able to maintain a strong growth in BPF membership and by the end of 2021 the BPF had 498 members. A number of factors have driven this: Brexit, the need for companies to exchange experience and access information following lockdown, and opportunities arising during key trade fairs at which the BPF exhibited such as Interplas.
The BPF turned in a very solid financial performance in 2021 and I am pleased we were able to implement a 0% membership subscription increase for the second year running. Our financial strength rests upon ownership of the BPF’s building in central London, a diversified membership across many different business sectors, continuing opportunities for growth (particularly in the SME area), and our ability to attract financial grants from awarding bodies.
The development of an IT-based membership experience, facilitated by online platforms, particularly Teams and Zoom, are presenting us with wider opportunities and more choices for our members. In addition to numerous group meetings, we ran 61 webinars and 13 seminars, and these were attended by over 3,300 people. I was also delighted that Platts became part of our Business Support Network and am confident that their expertise and insights will continue to enrich the seminar and webinar programme and benefit the wider membership.
The BPF has been developing a hugely capable CRM system, enabling us to reach out to increasing numbers of industrial contacts, further improving our capacity for communicating with the industry and streamlining the membership experience. Our eLearning programme also continued to develop and we released a comprehensive course about energy management for plastics processors that can be tailored to specific manufacturing processes, as well as an entire course specifically for those involved in rotational moulding.
We have been putting greater emphasis on facilitating the industry as it makes positive changes and communicating these evolutions. This included further growth in Operation Clean Sweep, which has the highest participation rate out of any European national plastics industry. The BPF also played a leading role in developing the world’s first ever PAS standard for pellet loss, a very significant achievement.
Responding to government targets, the BPF set up a Net Zero Committee to support the industry and released a Net Zero Hub, which contains a plethora of online tools and information. We also developed a Carbon Reporting Tool that was released on a trial basis at the end of the year, prior to a planned full release in 2022. 2021 also saw the BPF markedly expanding its parliamentary activities, joining the Industry and Parliament Trust (presenting our BPF Recycling Roadmap in one of their events), while also publishing four exclusive, keynote articles (and many other press releases and statements) on the political website, Politics Home. This work culminated in a highly successful Parliamentary Reception, held on 30 November.
All this activity was underpinned by the release of some very solid documents, including the BPF Recycling Roadmap, which projects what the UK can realistically achieve in terms of growing its domestic recycling capacity over the next decade, provided that the correct drivers are in place. Sustainability in the Plastics Supply Chain provides an indepth analysis of many initiatives underway, supported by many case studies. Finally, Plastics Explained provides an overview of the current issues surrounding plastics, outlining the industry’s position on a range of key topics. It serves as a highly useful reference document to share with concerned customers, curious journalists or political contacts.
When it comes to Brexit, some issues persist such as the mistaken labelling of products, container shortages, transport difficulties (which to some extent are easing), while the complexities surrounding trade with Northern Ireland have become an issue that remains a particular concern. There is still considerable ambiguity over the extent to which the UK will follow its own legislative pathway and to what extent it will reflect EU legislation. There are many good elements in EU legislation that we want to have maintained and in trade with the EU we don’t want the burden of having to respect two different sets of requirements.
For these reasons the BPF is still very much involved in European discussions. and the Brexit ‘divorce’ has not significantly changed the BPF’s need to commune with the UK’s biggest single trading partner. There is also significant ownership of UK industry by overseas companies, so it is vitally important that we maintain the very best of links with European plastics industry organisations at an EU as well as a national level. We have therefore maintained our membership of all key European organisations and I am proud to represent the BPF on the EuPC steering committee. We also highly value our alliance with Plastics Europe, where we have an excellent working relationship with Virginia Janssens’s team there. Overall our representation on an international level is as follows:
EuPC – Philip Law EPPA (Windows) – Martin Althorpe EUMEPS (EPS) – David Emes EUROMAP (Machinery) – Stephen Hunt TEPPFA (Pipes) – Caroline Ayres CIPAD (global plastics associations) –
Philip Law
Finally I would like to pay tribute to our president, Karen Drinkwater, who has made herself unfailingly available and is a fund of balanced percipient advice. I must also also record my heartfelt thanks to the great staff team we have at the BPF, who regularly go the extra mile for our members and make running this organisation such a pleasure.
