Collaboration and policy for a sustainable surface treatment industry

Sustainability is a prioritized area for the Swedish surface treatment industry. The nature of the processes and materials involved push the sector forward in the search for new and improved alternatives to achieve more environmentally friendly production systems and processes and comply with new and increasing regulations without undermining quality and costs. 
With the increased need for a rapid transition to meet the climate challenge, resource availability, environmental and societal challenges, as well as ensuring and providing necessary competences, an approach that looks at all the system perspectives, beyond technological development, and that includes active participation of all the stakeholders is required.

The project COLIN will propose a strategy to accelerate the change to a sustainable surface treatment industry by: 

• involving all the surface treatment stakeholders along the entire value chain
• creating a long-lasting collaboration where policies and instruments can be discussed, proposed and their effect on technology development and implementation can be assessed, and
• developing a step-by-step plan on how to achieve the expected short- and long-term effects, contemplating the development of new certifications and standards.

The project is coordinated by RISE. Other partners in the consortium are the Swedish environmental agency, industrial partners from different parts of the value chain, trade associations, and academic partners
with experts in different areas of surface technology. The broad multidisciplinary group of competences in Sweden, represented by the project consortium, is what enables the work towards our shared vision of a sustainable surface treatment industry.