Circular Economy : European Vita Group Is Investing in Circular Economy Products
Its ‘Enhancing Everyday Life’ strategy will enable The Vita Group to further develop its Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) strategy. These include ensuring that all foaming plants are able to manufacture using sustainable polyols equivalents by 2030 and that no manufacturing waste is taken to landfill after 2040 - an ambition which it has already achieved across two of its largest sites at Middleton and Accrington.
"We are optimising our operations through the introduction of new and emerging technologies, enabling us to innovate and enhance our existing, and new product developments to achieve greater circularity, be more eco-friendly and rapidly bring new developments to market", Ian Robb, CEO of The Vita Group, says.
The roadmap for the next three decades includes; aiming for the use of 100% renewable electricity across all Vita plants by 2030; a desire to be Scope 1 and Scope 2 carbon neutral across all wholly-owned manufacturing operations by 2050; as well as ensuring that no manufacturing waste is taken to landfill after 2040, an ambition which it has already achieved across two of its largest sites at Middleton and Accrington.
“Our four innovation centres in Accrington, Corby, Middleton and Lithuania are crucial to bringing about the required change, by providing us with dedicated testing and research facilities."
To achieve these targets, The Vita Group will harness the potential of this four innovation centres which cater to emerging customer needs through developments in chemistry, processing, material usage and new product research. Recently, The Vita Group’s Middleton Innovation Centre developed FRee foam, an environmentally-friendly alternative to standard foams that is fully compliant with UK flammability regulations.
Other recent investments include a new collaboration with Dow on its Mattress Recycling Program. The partnership involves mattresses being processed through Dow’s in-house technology and converted back into a base raw material used to make brand new foam for a variety of applications, including mattresses. Production quantities of foam will be manufactured using RENUVA Polyols at Vita’s production site at ICOA in Crancey, north-central France.