EDITOUR PETplanet Insider Vol. 26 No. 10/25 www.petpla.net 16 Avient plans for sustainability Our Editor-at-Large, Ruari McCallion, visited Avient’s facility in Knowsley, Liverpool, England, where he met with Marco Schaefer, Senior Marketing Manager; Adam Parsons, Site Manager; and Adrian Carmichael, R&D Director, and had a tour of the site. Editour Interview with Avient // June 11, 2025 We met: Marco Schaefer, Senior Marketing Manager; Adam Parsons, Site Manager; and Adrian Carmichael, R&D Director Avient Corporation, based in Avon Lake, Ohio, USA, operates over 100 production sites across 35 countries and employs approximately 9,400 people. The company provides advanced material solutions to a wide range of industries, including packaging, healthcare, transportation, construction, consumer goods, and telecommunications. One of Avient’s key facilities is located in Knowsley, near Liverpool, England. This site serves as the company’s primary production hub for colour and additive solutions tailored to the PET bottle industry and also houses Avient’s global R&D centre for PET packaging. The facility spans four buildings within an industrial estate, strategically positioned near major transport routes and Liverpool docks. “Avient has over 35,000 solutions in its portfolio, due to a high number of custom colour formulations but it also includes a wide variety of additives for various industries. These products could be based on a liquid or a solid carrier system. Plastic packaging is one of the most important markets for us,” said Marco Schaefer, Senior Marketing Manager. As a supplier to the packaging industry, Avient is also an enabler of recycling and circularity “Avient’s solutions aim to contribute to sustainability through lightweighting, reducing energy consumption and cutting VOCs (volatile organic compounds). We offer solutions for virgin plastics as well as post-consumer recyclate (PCR).” State of the art production facility for liquid masterbatches Adam Parsons, Site Manager, took the lead for a tour of the production lines. “The mixing process is a lot like making a cake. You have your wet ingredients and your dry ingredients and the trick is to blend them properly,” Adam Parsons said. “Maintaining a vortex during mixing is very important. We fill units in volumes from 15 to 1,100 kilograms.” “The base production line handles small batch production, of up to 250 kilos. Small batches are mixed in a way quite like a paint mixing machine,” he said. Inspection is ongoing. “Any deviation from customer specifications is fixed, in-house, before despatch to customers. We retain small samples for three years.” Filled drums are handled by machinery designed to reduce the need for manual handling, which pretty much eliminates strain-related workplace injuries. Sustainability After the tour of the production floor, the group reconvened in the conference room and covered Avient’s drive to deliver sustainability. Avient is rated with a Silver Medal by EcoVadis, a score that puts it in the top 15% of companies, and has a CDP Climate Score of A minus. Its annual Sustainability Report, which runs to 67 pages and reports via the GRI, TCFD and SASB frameworks, goes into detail about the action it is taking across all its operations. “We are committed to reduce our greenhouse gases (GHG) by 55% by 2030; and we reached a 52% reduction in scope 1 and 2 emissions in 2024 already,” said Mr Schaefer. “We are permanently working on internal sustainability projects, focused on waste reduction and energy efficiency and include energy-efficient motors, air compressors, forklifts and lighting.” On-site solar power and/or wind installations; purchasing sustainable energy; and investing in virtual power agreements have increased renewable electricity levels to over 50%. It is committed to reduce waste to landfill by three per cent a year, which may not sound much but is a tough target, as Avient doesn’t send much to landfill in the first place. Its efforts extend to the supply chain, also. “We assess our suppliers using the EcoVadis platform. Our goal is to assess 90% of our suppliers by 2030; we reached 75% in 2024,” he continued. Avient recovers heat from its closed-loop water cooling for reuse used in building heating. New extrusion lines are equipped with nextgeneration motors and heating lines optimised to reduce energy use. Manufacturing software dynamically measures process data, which is used to improve efficiencies. Avient is also an active member of PETCORE, RecyClass, and APR and is driving circularity by improving the mechanical recycling process through additive and colour innovation. Regulatory challenges “EU regulations impose an extra burden on companies doing business in Europe but, if the rules are applied equally to companies producing in Europe and those importing into Europe, it would create a level playing field,” Mr Schaefer said. “Stricter regulations, such as PPWR, including limitations on using non-PFAS chem- Sponsors to date by Ruari McCallion
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