DuluxGroup’s core purpose is to Imagine a Better Place, and providing safer and more sustainable products to the market is, therefore, a key focus for the business. To achieve this, the company has a structured product stewardship process in place to systematically assess and drive improvements in the sustainability performance of its products.
While product stewardship programs traditionally centre on post-consumer waste management, the DuluxGroup approach has a broad focus including consideration of chemical safety, indoor air quality (volatile organic compounds), sustainable procurement of raw materials, recycled and renewable content, packaging and labelling, life cycle sustainability impacts and carbon footprint along with post-consumer waste solutions.
Each year DuluxGroup businesses, which include the Dulux, Selleys, B&D, Parchem, Lincoln Sentry and Yates brands, assess opportunities and develop action plans in each product category to improve the sustainability performance of products throughout their lifecycle, from raw material purchase through to solutions for used product and packaging to ‘close the loop’. Delivery of these action plans is included in business objectives and performance measures, ensuring that product stewardship work effort is balanced with other business priorities.
The Dulux Duration range has been used on a number of commercial projects, including the ‘Oculus’ of the QV1 building in Perth.
Some recent product stewardship innovations include:
- Development of a new water-based metal Dulux Protective Coatings range called ‘Duration’. The range offers a low VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) alternative to traditional solvent-based technologies. The range includes epoxies, polyurethanes and fluoropolymer technologies designed to protect and decorate structural steel, in mildly corrosive environments. It has been used on a number of commercial projects, including the ‘Oculus’ of the QV1 building in Perth (pictured).
- The launch of Selleys Liquid Nails Instant Hold. Liquid Nails Instant Hold is a construction adhesive that allows you to instantly stick any building material (including heavy materials like bricks or mirrors up to 400kg/m²) on to any surface (even vertical surfaces) without the use fasteners or clamps. Instant Hold is one product in a new range of sealants and adhesives that use Sil-X technology. Sil-X products deliver superior performance benefits such as application to wet or dry surfaces, excellent UV resistance and sealing properties and do not contain hazardous isocyanates.
- Dulux Paint’s founding membership of the industry-wide Paintback post-consumer waste collection program, which aims to support responsible management of waste paint and reduce paint and packaging waste to landfill. Paintback is establishing sites across Australia to collect, transport and recycle waste paint and packaging from domestic and trade customers. The scheme commenced in May 2016, with 14 collection sites and a vision to grow service coverage to 85% of the Australian population by 2021. Already 100 collection sites have been established throughout Australia and more than 7 million kilograms of waste paint and packaging has been collected since the scheme launched in 2016. (for more information see www. paintback.com.au
- Our B&D Garage Doors and Openers business operates a take-back scheme with installers which enables them to return packaging and old roller doors back to B&D factories for disposal and recycling.
- Dulux has developed and published Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for its water-based trade products. EPDs provide customers with whole-of-life environmental information on paints and packaging and can be used to develop a project-wide life cycle, assessment models. EPDs assist architects, specifiers and construction industry members in achieving sustainable and Green Star certified projects.
The elements of the Product Stewardship program, which underpin these successes, include a standardised framework for assessing sustainability opportunities that accommodates the breadth of products that DuluxGroup produces from garage doors through to garden products, sealants, glues and paint. Participation in the process by a multi-disciplinary team including marketing, technical, operations and safety and sustainability professionals allows all aspects of product sustainability to be captured and enhances innovation. High-level commitment to the process and ownership of the program by each DuluxGroup business is also a key ingredient to success.