BPF Director-General Philip Law's 2015 End of Year Message to Membership

This has been a year of major achievement for the British Plastics Federation and I want to give you my personal thanks for your membership and support in making this year’s successes happen.

In short, our new Education and Skills Committee has got off to an excellent start and we will be launching an online educational resource for schools - ‘Polymer Zone’ - by the end of the year backed up with schools kits and slide presentations ready for our ‘Polymer Ambassadors’ to take into schools in 2016.

Our Strategy for the Plastics Industry, prepared with Government funding and with assistance from the Cambridge University Institute for Manufacturing, will be published at the beginning of 2016 and will reshape our agenda with education, skills and reputation to the fore alongside access to consistently available feedstocks, the Circular Economy, innovation for future markets and more firmly harnessing the UK’s design capabilities to the industry’s expertise.

Once again in 2016 our core lobbying and crisis management skills will be very much in demand across a wide range of issues.  We are seeing some preliminary success of our lobbies to keep ADCA out of the REACH list of substances for Authorisation, and in 2016 we will be active on the availability of energy and materials, preventing potential boycotts of plastic products, recycling and waste management, the implications of the ‘circular economy’, marine litter, product safety and industrial health and safety.  Recently new Sentencing Guidelines for health and safety misdemeanours carry dark implications for Company Directors.

Our ‘Plastics Industry Directory’, containing details of your company and now available in a physical as well as online version, will be re-designed and presented.  Thousands of copies will be distributed globally, not the least through our overseas exhibitions programme which in 2016 will take in Plastics and Rubber Vietnam in   Ho Chi Minh City, 1st – 3rd March, ChinaPlas in Shanghai, 25th – 28th April, and K2016, 16th -26th October.  We are also exploring the possibility of exhibiting at IranPlast, 13th -17th April.

In early 2016 we will be bringing the administration of the BPF’s Climate Change Agreement in-house.  This will produce significant savings which will be passed on to BPF member firms, reducing the discount on participation fees even further.

We do hope that you will join us at our BPF Annual Dinner on 13th October 2016.  This will be held at the Lancaster London Hotel.  Our 2015 Annual Dinner was the largest the BPF has ever held with 506 guests making for business networking of the highest order and a demonstration to the Government representatives and customer industries present that we are a vitally important industry sector, now with an annual turnover of £25 billion!

BPF membership now stands at 500 full corporate members and we will be welcoming into the BPF former members of PAFA who will be joining our own Packaging members to create a new Group covering Plastics and Flexible Packaging.  This will enable the BPF to take a higher profile on consumer reputational issues for the benefit of all. 

With my personal best wishes for your company’s success in 2016.'

Philip Law