BCF Awards break all records
A record 130 guests gathered to celebrate the successes of the coatings industry at the 2015 British Coatings Federation Awards Evening in Cheshire, UK earlier this week (November 25). The evening’s winners included Beckers, Covestro, Farrow & Ball, Fujichem Sonneborn, HMG Paints, Jotun Paints and Sun Chemical.
It was a great night for all those who entered, with over 30 finalists from raw material suppliers, coatings and ink manufacturers and students from BCF’s Coatings Training Institute.
Environmental performance at the UK coating industry’s manufacturing sites continues to improve, with ever lower solvent emissions, less waste produced and lower accident rates. This year’s top sites were HMG Paints in Manchester (Coatings Care Overall Best Performer) and Jotun Paints in Flixborough (Coatings Care Progress Award).
The BCF Sustainable Innovation Award, sponsored by Veolia, was split into two categories for the first time this year, to include a sub-category for suppliers. The main award was won by Fujichem Sonneborn for its new chrome paint finish technology, and the supplier award was presented to Covestro for its polyurethane hardener with renewable raw material content.
The Excellence in Training Award, sponsored by Cogent Skills, was won by Sun Chemical, working with in-house champions to deliver a well-structured training programme, and Becker Industrial Coatings’ Daniel Casey picked up the Student of the Year Award.
New to the programme this year is BCF’s Customer Service Award, won by Farrow & Ball, who transformed an order processing office into a centralised multi lingual customer service department.
BCF’s CEO, Tom Bowtell, commented: “Our Awards go from strength to strength – with over three times as any guests at our dinner compared to our first year in 2010 and a record number of entries.
“Our industry has achieved some amazing successes during a very tough few years, and I’m proud to represent an industry that takes sustainability, training and customer service so seriously. Well done to all our finalists, and especially our winners.”