Recently, the “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for Energy Saving and Emission Reduction in Huizhou City” issued by the Development and Reform Bureau of Huizhou City, Guangdong Province has attracted the attention of paint people. One of the sentences, “It is prohibited to use solvent-based coatings and adhesives in municipal projects and government-invested housing and maintenance projects; the use of solvent-based coatings is prohibited during real estate exterior wall decoration” has touched the nerves of many people in the industry. The “Huizhou Plan” is a five-year planning document issued by the Huizhou Municipal Development and Reform Bureau. It makes a comprehensive overall layout for Huizhou City’s energy conservation and emission reduction work from 2016 to 2020, and puts forward specific goals. The focus of the “Huizhou Plan” is energy conservation and emission reduction, which is the VOCs governance issue that is now being discussed very hotly. Therefore, the document’s restrictions and requirements for coatings are specific and practical.
To sum up, there are three specific policies on coatings in the “Huizhou Plan”:
1. Government projects, including municipal projects and government-invested projects, will prohibit the use of solvent-based coatings and adhesives;
2. All real estate exterior wall decorations, including those other than government projects, are prohibited from using solvent-based coatings;
3. In the automobile maintenance industry, gradually promote the transformation of water-based paint production lines.
It is not difficult to see that if the word “prohibited” is used in the first two points, it must be strictly supervised and inspected, which is a must. The third point is a matter of “gradual advancement”, which can be regarded as an option. There is no tough goal, but there must be certain results.
Although the “Huizhou Plan” is only a local policy of Huizhou City, it has sent two important messages to the paint industry: First, the ban on paint in the city is no longer a In individual cases, solvent-based coatings will be subject to more and more restrictions in more places in the future; secondly, government projects in various places are likely to gradually abandon solvent-based coatings.
Observing the Huizhou-style paint ban, there are several points that may allow paint people to breathe a sigh of relief temporarily: First, there is no comprehensive paint ban like Shenzhen. It is only for government projects and exterior wall decoration; secondly, although the prohibition requirements are clear, there are no more instructions on the time. It is likely that a certain period of buffering and adaptation will be set aside; thirdly, no specific supervision and punishment methods are mentioned, and coating companies are expected to be able to gradually adjust in a more flexible manner.
There has always been a lot of debate in the coatings industry about the replacement of solvent-based coatings with environmentally friendly coatings. No matter how many advantages environmentally friendly coatings have, it is still unrealistic to completely replace solvent-based coatings. This is also a major concern when the country implements environmental protection policies: on the one hand, the road to environmental protection must be taken, and the general direction of using policies to support environmentally friendly coatings to replace solvent-based coatings will definitely not change; but on the other hand, the pace of environmental protection Without moving too fast, it is also very important to prevent coating enterprises from “unbearable pain of transformation”.
Nowadays, Huizhou-style “government project taking the lead” in banning paint is undoubtedly a better idea: first, government projects actively choose environmentally friendly coatings, starting from their own First of all, it is highly feasible and easy to operate and supervise; secondly, through the selection of market behavior as a guide, it respects market rules more than administrative intervention methods such as subsidies and fines, and paint companies are more accepting of it; finally, after a total paint ban, Today, when it is still difficult to completely eliminate solvent-based coatings, this small-scale initiative to advocate environmentally friendly coatings can be gradually adjusted and implemented step by step, which is more suitable for the current reality of my country’s coatings market.
In summary, there may still be many details and results that have not yet been determined in the new wave of real paint bans brought about by the “Huizhou Plan”. However, its inspiring significance and reference role cannot be ignored for the coatings industry. In the future, solvent-based coatings will be subject to more and more restrictions in more places, and local government projects will gradually abandon solvent-based coatings, which is likely to become a new trend in promoting environmental protection policies. Let us wait and see how much environmental benefits the Huizhou-style paint ban will bring and how much impact it will have on the environmental protection of the coatings industry.
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