Project Fact Sheet – UpdatedMarch2010

European Plastics Converting Industry Voluntary Long-Term Agreement on Energy Efficiency(EuPlastVoltage)

Programme area: / Main area, main key action
Coordinator: / EuPC
European Plastics Converters, Belgium
E-mail:
Tel: + 32 2 732 41 24
Partners: / SenterNovem, The Netherlands
Association of Hungarian Plastics Industry, Hungary
Asociación Española de Industriales de Plasticos, Spain
British Plastics Federation, United Kingdom
IK Industrievereinigung Kinststoffverpackungen e.V., Germany
Vereniging van producenten van Kunststof en rubberartikelen, Belgium
Fraunhofer – Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V., Germany
Federatie Nederlandse Rubber en Kunststofindustrie, The Netherlands
Fédération de la Plasturgie, France
Associação Portuguesa de Indústria de Plásticos, Portugal
Website: /
Benefits
(max. 150 characters incl. space): / The objective of this project is to prepare a voluntary long-term agreement on energy efficiency for the European plastics converting industry.
Keywords: / Plastics, voluntary, agreement
Duration: / 24 months (June 2009 – May 2011)
Budget: / € 810,232.00 (EU contribution: €597,069.00 – 73.69%)
Contract number: / EE/08/554/SI2.528400

Summary

The plastics converting industry is composed of 50,000 SMEs and 1.6 million employees spread across the 27 Member States. In general these companies do not have enough assets, human resources or knowledge to improve their energy efficiency. However, this industry is willing to actively participate in the Climate Action of the European Union through its strong associative network in Europe. Moreover, there is strong pressure to strengthen competitiveness and sustainability of the European plastics converting by the sector itself.

The objective of this project is to prepare a voluntary agreement for the European plastics converting industry. This action will bring together experience and best practices at national and industry levels, with the aim to create a long-term agreement at European level. Amongst others, energy saving targets as well as the type of voluntary agreement will be analysed during the project. The project will base part of its activities on previous or ongoing IEE projects - in particular RECIPE and ENER-Plast for the sector - in order to build on best practice.

Expected and/or achieved results

  • Market transformation: This action will indirectly introduce and promote the concept of energy services in industry and will tackle untapped energy savings potentials in the plastics converting industry.
  • Changing behaviour: This voluntary long-term agreement will lead to exchanges of know-how and experience between energy managers. For instance, the Dutch energy managers, who have significant experience of Voluntary Agreements, will exchange their experience with energy managers from other countries.
  • Training: as mentioned above this project will create conditions to have further training on energy efficiency practices not only in the plastics industry but potentially in other industry by a spin-off effect.
  • Access capital: The reduction of energy consumption within the targeted European industry will lead to improved financial performance. As a result, access to capital will be increased, leading to further investment in energy efficiency.
  • The first achievement of the project has been to finish the pre-study work (package). This work gave the possibility to gather important information for the following project activities.
  • Currently the impact assessment is being finalised andthis important study will give the tools to tailor an effective voluntary agreement scheme to the targeted industry
  • An important result is that the industry and authorities at various levels are becoming aware that the plastics converting industry is working on a voluntary agreement. Positive feedback and interest have been received by the stakeholders.

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