Progress Report 2025: Pathway 2
Minimising the Environmental Footprint of the PVC Value Chain
Advancing Towards Carbon Neutrality
In line with the European Green Deal ambitions on climate change, VinylPlus and PVC sectoral organisations are committed to foster greater collaboration within the PVC value chain and support partner companies in achieving carbon neutrality and increasing the use of renewable energy and sustainable feedstocks.
Partnering with Carbon Minds to Drive Carbon Reduction
In addition, Carbon Minds will support VinylPlus in reporting on renewable energy use and sustainable feedstock sourcing, and on water footprint reduction. Carbon Minds conducted life cycle assessments (LCAs) for six key PVC sectors during 2024, to better understand environmental impacts across the value chain.
These LCAs will be the basis for identifying specific areas in all six sectors in which carbon and water footprints can be reduced and finding actionable opportunities for further sustainability improvements. This initiative is instrumental in helping the PVC industry meet European decarbonisation targets and improving its overall environmental performance.
French Decarbonisation Roadmap for PVC Profiles
The roadmap will include a comprehensive assessment of members’ emissions in Scope 1, 2, and 3, enabling SNEP to set overarching emissions reduction targets. It will outline key strategies for cutting emissions, establish monitoring indicators, and define short- and medium-term trajectories. In September 2024, SNEP published its new Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), which serves as the foundation for evaluating GHG emissions and carbon footprints, marking the first step in the decarbonisation journey.
Embracing the Sustainable Use of Chemical Substances
The Additive Sustainability Footprint® (ASF) is a methodology to proactively assess and promote the sustainable production and use of PVC additives throughout entire product life cycles, including the roles of additives in the performance of PVC products.
Over the past decades, VinylPlus additive partners have worked hard to ensure that the additives used in new PVC products not only fully comply with current legislation but are also developed to be safe and high-performing in the foreseeable future. The ASF methodology has significantly influenced their research and development efforts.
A training programme in the ASF methodology was organised in 2024 involving 15 additives companies to provide company-specific examples of the Additive Sustainability Footprint.® Participant companies benefited from developing key personnel skills in assessing additive sustainability and in driving innovation for the sustainable use of additives.
Additionally, they received external advice and insights from sustainability advisors on how to enhance their company’s sustainability efforts and gained an understanding of how the ASF methodology can help obtain the VinylPlus® Supplier Certificates for additive producers.
Minimising Our Environmental Footprint
Aligned with the EU Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, VinylPlus is firmly committed to reducing the environmental footprint of all PVC products, along with their supply chains and manufacturing processes. This includes supporting partner companies in minimising emissions and measuring, managing and reducing water use, encouraging the use of life cycle assessments (LCAs) and environmental product declarations (EPDs), and promoting the responsible handling and minimisation of potential polymer and compound spillages.
99.2% Compliance with the ECVM Industry Charter
A first third-party verification of compliance with the Charter updated in 2019 was carried out in 2022 by DEKRA GmbH, assessing 40 plants at 22 sites in nine countries. It found a compliance rate of 89.2%.
A second third-party verification round expanding to 46 plants at 28 sites in the same nine countries was organised in 2024. This verification demonstrated that significant progress had been made, with a remarkable compliance rate of 99.2%.
Following this achievement, DEKRA issued a public statement acknowledging the industry’s advances in sustainability and responsible care practices.
ECVM Charter Update
The ECVM Production Committee worked on updating the ECVM Charter in 2024, integrating new environmental emissions criteria in line with the latest BAT (Best Available Techniques ) Reference Documents (BREFs). The revision will introduce a new criterion on worker exposure limits for EDC (ethylene dichloride), will include an appendix detailing accepted standards and analytical methods for compliance assessment, and will address DEKRA’s recommendations from previous verification rounds.
The updated ECVM Charter is expected to be published by the end of 2025. This initiative underscores a strong commitment to ongoing improvements in environmental and worker safety standards in the PVC industry.
Eco-Profile Shared With Ecoinvent
In 2024, the gate-to-gate environmental impact data of the updated eco-profile for VCM and PVC production by ECVM members, was shared with ecoinvent, a leading database for life cycle assessment. Ecoinvent incorporated the updated gate-to-gate data into its v3.11 release in November, improving access to accurate, up-to-date environmental impact background dataset for industry stakeholder
Life Cycle Inventory Datasets for Recycled PVC
Each dataset will be adjusted for the energy mix in different EU regions, providing flexibility for various environmental contexts (e.g., PEF or EPD standards), and will undergo third-party review.
By the end of 2024, data collection from four PVC recyclers had been completed, and initial results for both flakes and powder had been shared with them. Following their finalisation, the datasets are expected to be available by mid-2025.
Operation Clean Sweep®: Towards Zero PVC Powder Loss
The Operation Clean Sweep® (OCS) programme aims to minimise the release of plastic particles into the environment through effective management and auditing practices. The OCS Pledge has been signed by all ECVM members, and 18 out of 30 PVC production sites (61%) were OCS-certified by the end of 2024.
To support members’ compliance and promote consistent OCS auditing methods across the industry, the ECVM Production Committee published Estimation of PVC Powder Losses in 2024. This document identifies sources of powder release and methods for estimating powder emissions. It also helps members prepare for the forthcoming reporting obligations included in entry 78 of REACH Annex XVII.
In addition, the document Requirements for Minimising Product Loss During Unloading was issued to help PVC powder users improve their management practices for unloading operations.
Responsible Supplier Criteria and Programmes
To provide VinylPlus partners with relevant and transparent information on the progress towards sustainability of the upstream supply chain, VinylPlus maintained close communication with Euro Chlor and Petrochemicals Europe – the two sector groups of Cefic representing European producers of raw materials for PVC resins.
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