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The biggest environmental issue facing the paint industry today is that of Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) emissions and the effect that the solvents contained in paints have on the air we breathe.
VOCs evaporate from many sources including fuels, numerous industrial operations and household products such as cleaning agents, cosmetics, aerosols and paints.
Even though less than 3% of all man-made VOCs in Europe come from decorative paint, we believe that our industry has a duty to reduce VOC emissions from products whilst still meeting end user needs. R&D work carried out since the mid-1980s means we can now offer water-based alternatives alongside solvent-based products, and we are also developing lower-VOC formulations of our solvent-based products.
We have implemented a voluntary industry agreement for carrying out these VOC reductions in products and for displaying VOC content information on product labels – to encourage customers to choose products with lower VOC content.
The scheme carries an environmental warning about the impact of VOCs and indicates the solvent level through 5 bands, as illustrated on the right of this page.
The paint industry has agreed to use standard terminology, text and categories for all products. New labelling began to appear in April 1998 on ICI Paints' main product lines and is now used across the full product range, both Trade and Retail.
Manufacturers will use one of two formats, either a globe label (shown right) as initiated by B&Q or a simple text box, on the back panel.
We at ICI Paints have been closely involved in the working group looking at a new European directive on the reduction of VOCs. This directive is a two stage process, whereby strict VOC limits have been set for paint and varnish products. The first stage, for which ICI Paints is fully prepared, started in January 2007, whereby solvent based glosses must comply with 400g/l *. This will have little or no effect to the quality and properties of ICI Paints' products. The second stage starts in 2010, when even stricter limits will be applied. Solvent based products will then need to comply to 300g/l*.
Minimal - VOC content 0% to 0.29%
Low - VOC content 0.3% to 7.99%
Medium - VOC content 8% to 24.99%
High - VOC content 25% to 50%
Very High - VOC content more than 50%
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