Philip Law's Review at the 89th Annual General Meeting

Speaking at the BPF’s AGM in May, Director General - Philip Law - highlighted 6 elements of the current BPF programme which will feature more prominently in the future. As he put it, ‘the building blocks of tomorrow are lying around us today’. These are:

1. Political Contacts
2. The Importance of Networking
3. Productivity
4. Links with International Organisations
5. Education and Skills
6. Communications
    

1. The UK’s political future will shape policy and legislation. It’s a critical time and consequently we are intensifying the number and quality of the political contacts we are making. He said the BPF had been very successful at ramping up interest in the plastics industry among the government, civil servants, and Parliamentarians of all allegiances.

In considering the question ‘in the future will plastics be ‘in’ or ‘out’?’ he believes that we have definitely moved the dial in the right direction. ‘I think in the past few years we have moved from a position of ‘definitely out’ under Theresa May and early Boris Johnson, when opinion was very much formed by the Attenborough Blue Planet II film, to now being ‘half in and half out’. 

We certainly now get some acknowledgement from politicians that the industry has been hard done by.  Before the election announcement we had fixed a meeting with new Industry Minister, Alan Mak, on July 2nd, if you went back five years that wouldn’t have been possible. The BPF has met with key members of the Labour Shadow Ministerial team: Bill Esterson MP when he was a Shadow Industry Minister, twice; Ruth Jones MP, Shadow Minister for Environmental Protection, twice ; Sarah Jones, Shadow Minister for Industry and Decarbonisation; and Gareth Thomas, Shadow Trade Minister.

Law felt the Sarah Jones meeting was particularly productive – ‘not only did she march immediately into a radio programme and dismiss the notion of banning plastics, she put us into contact with her Shadow Trade Minister – Gareth Thomas MP - whom we met very recently.

Law said all politicians spoken to in detail are impressed by our numbers, and these are now: 

• Employees – 150,000 (with a reasonable multiplier for dependants this could approach half a million)
• 3rd largest manufacturing sector  
• Turnover £28.7 billion
• In top ten exporting sectors        

Labour’s ‘big idea’ is to set up an Industry Council to improve consultation with manufacturing. If it comes to pass we will be assessing if it’s something we can realistically aspire to joining.

Law referred to the BPF’s publication of its own ‘Election Manifesto’ of 8 key requests, addressed at the political parties. What has interested politicians most about this document is the BPF’s case for the UK plastics being officially recognised as a ‘foundation industry’. This would be the ultimate signal that we are ‘fully in’ and worthy of government’s priority attention. Getting full recognition of chemical recycling through a mandate for using mass balance has also excited interest and persuaded some MPs to submit Parliamentary Questions. Shadow Trade Minister Thomas was very receptive to receiving more information from us about the need to  improve on the poor support for exports via overseas trade shows.

Whilst this one on one activity is very time consuming and long-term, Law believes it’s essential we invest more resource into it and broaden the basis of the contact. The very week of the AGM the BPF had held meetings with nine Parliamentarians.

2. More internal to the organisation, Law highlighted two events which have underlined the importance of networking within the BPF membership. ‘Whether it’s a product of Brexit or Covid or both, we are witnessing a real appetite for networking between companies, some of which are not necessarily working in comparable fields' he said.

"Our ground-breaking trip to Lego in April and our Mission and exhibition stand at Chinaplas in May certainly underlined this.  We will be building on this spirit at ‘a pilot members day’ on 4th June near Coventry where we will have desk top exhibitions of work in the 16 Universities we now have in membership.  As well as individual Group meetings we will have the opportunity to have plenary sessions with items of common interest discussed, avoiding duplication.  This could lead the way to a rationalisation of our structure and the way we engage with members, how we brief them and receive their feedback."

3. Related to this is the work on Productivity we have been doing. I can see this expanding and developing further, as innovation provides new opportunities.  Driven by the UK’s relative isolation following Brexit and the need to compete in a harsher, less friendly global trading environment - and who knows what new geopolitical configurations we will have to accommodate in the coming years - there will be a continuing need to help the UK plastics industry evaluate new technologies and systems and to upskill staff in the complexities of say, AI, so that they can be properly integrated.

4. On an international note, Law wanted to emphasise the importance of developing even further our links with international organisations so that we do not become isolated. Firstly he laid emphasis on the European trade associations EuPC, PlasticsEurope and their subsidiary organisations for specific sub-sectors. .  ‘The EU is still our major trading partner and what is happening in the EU institutions in Brussels continues to have a major impact here. Many of you are exporting to Europe or are owned by European enterprises. We don’t know the degree of regulatory alignment there will ultimately be with the EU but, as an example the emerging Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation is looked upon with some horror by UK companies and could well be reflected here in UK legislation. It’s not alone and I could also cite the recent REACH review of PVC additives. Our involvement in the EU trade associations is the best, indeed sometimes the only opportunity we have to influence these debates.’

He ventured further afield where ‘the United Nations Environmental Programme is developing a Global Treaty which threatens to have a negative impact on the global plastics industry.  There have been meetings in Nairobi and Ottawa mulling over the concept of production caps and financial support for Extended Producer Responsibility in the developing nations.  We need a voice in these talks’.

He added that actually the UK government does punch above its weight and the file is in the hands of Defra, but Defra needs to be briefed in depth on the plastics industry’s red lines.  Fortunately, we were able to secure accreditation for a small delegation to participate in the Ottawa meetings – Helen Jordan and Lara Steinhobel – both very capable, they represented us there and were able to engage in detailed dialogue with the Defra civil servants.

5. "I must speak about Education and Skills said Law as it’s a major concern of everyone I speak to. I also know this is a subject close to Nigel’s heart. It’s a widely recognised problem not just in plastics but in the whole of manufacturing, particularly the engineering aspects of it. It’s particularly acute in plastics because of the unfair reputation of the material. We’ve been very successful at developing tools for the industry to use and to assist its recruitment and outreach to schools – the PolymerZone website, the Jobs Board, a great upbeat video on careers in the industry, lesson plans etc.  However, despite this we are not satisfied with the level of membership engagement, and we are currently carrying out a review of the Careers Ambassadors Campaign to make it even more directly relevant to companies, the courses that are available and their accreditation".

6. On Communications, Law said, ‘we can’t have enough of it as the available vehicles are expanding all the time. We have a BPF website, www.bpf.co.uk, which is the second most widely read website on plastics in the English language globally. As well as being the UK plastics industry’s shop window It provides very many communications tools which plastics companies can use individually in their localities or with customers in their sector, including third party validations of plastics and the LCAs which underpin them.  We will be doing more to make the industry aware of these facilities and to encourage their use’.

He went on to explain how ‘social media will continue to be important communications vehicles with their capacity to tailor individual messages and information to the needs of personal interests. BPF will increase their use even further and by the end of 2023 we had 15,500 followers on Linkedin’.

Following on from our Plasticsrecyclingfacts.org campaign run jointly by the BPF and Environmental Services Association we will be expanding our ‘Plastics Saves’ campaign which will focus on the ability of plastics products to save basic resources such as energy , water and lives, amongst other benefits.

"Communications are at the root of everything the BPF do in person, online and in the media - from talking to politicians, to industry, to addressing consumers.

There will always be issues and the key thing from the BPF’s standpoint is to continually improve our capacity to deal with them I will mention one example and that is the introduction of Hubspot, an extremely sophisticated CRM tool which provides our basic infrastructure for interfacing with members. We can track the activity of individual members to the finest detail and among other things it’s enabling an improved targeting of communications and events, and it helps us tailor-make a more personal service, something which I think is particularly valued in our UK plastics industry.

But of course, the quintessential need is to have the right people doing the right jobs and this is something I feel we have achieved very well in the BPF and my final words and my deep thanks go to the excellent staff of the BPF, you do always go the extra mile."