CEO Today UK Awards 2021

That’s where our partnerships have played a crucial role. At our Corby facility, Vita produces its Cloud-9 carpet underlay. In meeting a common goal, we introduced an antimicrobial into our products ensuring they can maintain their freshness for longer, reducing waste and promising greater cost- efficiency for consumers. In 2017, we launched the Revosport shock pad. It takes 100% recycled material and infuses Vita’s open cell and reticulated foam technology to improve drainage on artificial pitches. Most recently, we have partnered with Dow in France on its ground-breaking RENUVATM program which will make high quality PU foam using polyols created from recycled mattress content. This is a collaboration we are very excited about and if it proves to be successful, we plan to attempt this practice of reusing used end of life PU foam in the UK and Germany too. It’s been fantastic to see the strong interest from our customers across Europe for these and other initiatives as we look towards setting a new and ambitious standard in sustainable manufacturing. We know that consumer demands are changing and with our current trajectory and aspirational approach, I am confident we’ll meet them. Our second principle is optimising resources or what we do when it comes to energy. We’re very fortunate that the process of making foam involves an exothermic reaction and we don’t need excessive energy for this part of the process. By formulating the correct ingredients controlling their exothermic growth within the confines of an efficient and controlled process, we can utilise the internal energy to manufacture the PU blocks In addition to this, 90% of the electricity we use currently comes from renewable sources. We’ve also found solutions in transportation of finished block and components, by utilising folding and pressing techniques with our foam in a way that allows us to vacuum compress products into smaller packs – a process which saves millions of miles and tonnes of petrol by using less vehicles for transportation! In terms of bio-polyols we’re trialling and using alternatives like soya beans and castor oil to replace some of the chemicals we use. All these practices are truly important for companies like ours and it’s exciting to see that sustainability is becoming more and more important not just in our sector, but across all industries. What’s on the company’s agenda for 2021? My number one priority is to continue working on improving our safety standards. A Lost Time Accident (LTA) is something that’s measured by most companies. When I joined The Vita Group in December 2019, our Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) was 0.9 - which means that for every 100,000 hours a person works, 0.9% of that will be spent in an LTA, which is a good score, but by December 2020, we had reduced that by a further 28%. Everyone’s safety is the most important thing for me. Now, to get to that next push forward, we plan to invest in behavioural safety and educating the whole organisation on behavioural studies so that everyone on the shop floor looks out for each other and knows what the right practices are. Over the past year, we have made a lot of improvements in terms of capital and despite the COVID-19 crisis I am very proud that we didn’t stop investing or innovating to drive the business forward. The one thing I learned in China during the two epidemics there is to not stop investing in strategic projects. When there’s a drop somewhere, it will undoubtedly be followed by an increase - so it’s important to prepare for that increase. Right from the very start of the pandemic, we said to ourselves that we need to ensure that our cash flow remains strong in 2020. At the beginning of 2021, we underlined our commitment to further international expansion with the acquisition of Italian foam manufacturer IMPE - a subsidiary of Natuzzi Group based in Naples. This Vita Italy Manufacturing 114 CEO TODAY UNITED KINGDOM AWARDS 2021