Dulux Trade and Carillion paint the town green with Forum for the Future under 'Project Zero Emission Enterprise'

Leading paint manufacturer, Dulux Trade, independent sustainability experts, Forum for the Future, and construction group, Carillion, have joined forces to conduct a three-year investigation into how sustainable innovation can save organisations both time and money, and even help them break into new markets.

The programme had the full weight of Forum for the Future's sustainability expertise behind it and, as a major user of paint, Carillion provided practical feedback that would genuinely make a difference to sustainable practice onsite, while ensuring that performance and aesthetic standards were maintained.

Workshops to strategise, implement, monitor and evaluate the three year programme were held on a rotational basis at Carillion project locations including at Heathrow's Terminal Five and the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth, and ICI Paints AkzoNobel and Forum for the Future locations.

The Project Zero Emission Enterprise (ZEE) research programme culminated in 'Paint the Town Green,' a groundbreaking white paper that details the product and service innovations that came out of the project, and the commercial benefits they can achieve. It explains how other major organisations can conduct environmental and social responsibility-driven innovation, and why this makes such good business sense.

Project ZEE was co-funded by the UK Government Technology Strategy Board, and as such was regularly evaluated for progress and satisfactory use of Government money by an appointed independent Government official.

During the research programme the entire lifecycle of paint was investigated with the aim of making each stage more sustainable, from raw materials, through manufacturing to use and disposal. Following this, Dulux Trade has been able to launch a number of industry-leading innovations into the marketplace, including Ecosure Matt, the 2nd generation of which is virtually VOC free and contains 35 per cent less C02 than standard formulations, and paint cans that use less plastic and are easier to recycle.*

Dr Phil Taylor, the lead contact from ICI Paints AkzoNobel on the project, says: "By studying the entire life cycle of paint with the help of Forum for the Future and Carillion, we've found many ways to make the whole process of painting a project more sustainable and in many cases save money. We are seizing these opportunities by using them to help us develop more eco-friendly paints, lighter packaging, more sustainable delivery new recycling services and other innovations."

In addition to implementing manufacturing improvements that save millions of litres of water, Dulux Trade launched the Environmental Wash System to save water onsite. This mobile brush and roller cleaning station for building sites prevents contaminated water being poured down the drain by capturing it for reuse once the paint residue has been filtered out. The company also launched the Paint Solidifier in 2009, a revolutionary product that eliminates the now illegal practise of sending leftover liquid paint to landfill or pouring it down a drain. When the product is mixed with paint, it is solidified in the can and then the resulting end product can be treated as normal solid waste, whilst the container can be recycled.

Peter Madden, Chief Executive of Forum for the Future, said: "Our work with Dulux Trade and Carillion shows that sustainable innovation makes good business sense. If such great things can be achieved with paint, imagine what can be done with other products and services like cars, mobile phones, holidays and homes."

Forum for the Future also worked with Dulux Trade to develop tools to facilitate sustainable innovation, which are now embedded into product development procedures by the paint manufacturer. Dr Taylor concludes: "The most crucial part of this project was the creation of metrics that genuinely quantify the success of any sustainability improvements. In the absence of an industry body to regulate on sustainability and paint, we hope that the Environmental Impact Analyser set the bar for a pragmatic sustainability measurement tool. As a result we were invited by DEFRA to roadtest the new emerging PAS2050 standard for carbon footprinting and benchmark with the EIA - gratifyingly the results were in harmony."

"Paint the Town Green" can be downloaded from www.forumforthefuture.org/projects/paint-the-town-green.

* PBW and Magnolia only. Although no VOCs or solvents are added to Ecosure during the manufacturing process, some of the raw materials can contain traces of volatile components, and therefore the number of these components found in a paint formulation can not be described as zero. Bases have minimum 29% less solvent.