BCF Awards celebrate best and brightest in the coatings industry

Print Solutions

The winners of the British Coatings Federation (BCF) Awards 2017 were announced at the annual BCF Awards, across eight categories showcasing brilliance in the coatings industry.

This year saw the addition of two new awards, the first of which for young leader of the year which was won by Alison Henshaw from Fine Décor Wallcoverings. The second was for corporate social responsibility and saw HMG Paints honoured as the SME winner for its ‘Paint the Town Green’ campaign and PPG Architectural Coatings in the multi-national category for its community engagement programme.

HMG Paints picked up a second award, when apprentice Darren James won the Coatings Training Institute student of the year. Also with two award wins was AkzoNobel, which picked up the customer service award, with a programme which has proved to deliver impressive business improvements, and the sustainable innovation award for its new factory in Ashington – the company’s most sustainable plant ever. The sustainable innovation category saw an uptake in entries in 2017, also awarding a winner for sustainable innovation supplier, which went to BYK-Gardner QC Instruments for its industry standard instruments designed to simplify digital approval in the automotive industry.

The excellence in training award was won by Fujichem Sonneborn, which impressed the judges the most with its overarching approach to training that focuses on competence over completion. Finally, the most long standing award, the coatings care overall best performer award went to Crown Paints in Hull, and the coatings care progress award to the Tor Coatings site in Chester-le-Street.

Tom Bowtell, BCF chief executive, said: ‘In amongst the challenges that the industry faces, it is fantastic to take the opportunity to take a step back and see how the coatings industry continues to deliver outstanding performance across so many aspects of the business.’