Member Spotlight: Teknor Apex: Building on a Century of Innovation to Advance Sustainable Materials

Through its Member Spotlight series, the Vinyl Sustainability Council highlights the companies helping advance sustainability across the vinyl value chain. 

Teknor Apex Company has come a long way from its beginnings as a small tire store and retread business in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Founded in 1924 as a family business, the company grew from retreading tires to developing its polymer-processing capabilities during the 1940s, expanded into vinyl in the 1950s, then shifted focus toward polymer compounding. The company soon became Teknor Apex, reflecting its growing focus on materials science and polymer formulation. 

Today, Teknor Apex is a leading plastic material science global solutions provider serving eight essential markets: automotive, building and construction, consumer, electrical & electronics, healthcare, industrial, packaging, and wire and cable. Its portfolio includes custom compounding, masterbatch and additive solutions, specialty chemicals, and technical services that help customers solve complex material challenges. Within the vinyl value chain, the company develops these customized formulations that help downstream manufacturers achieve the performance characteristics required for their finished products. 

Increasingly, that expertise is also helping customers meet sustainability goals through materials incorporating recycled, bio-based, and renewable content and other lower-impact solutions. The company’s broader focus is on developing responsible materials that deliver performance while supporting accountability and long-term impact. 

While sustainability has become more formalized within the organization in recent years, the principles behind it have been part of the company’s operations for decades. 

Teknor Apex’s Sustainability Journey 

Long before ESG (environmental, social, and governance) and sustainability were common business terms, environmental stewardship was a part of the Teknor Apex culture. Whether it was extending the useful life of tires through its early retreading business or repurposing scrap PVC into garden hoses rather than sending the material to landfill, the company found ways of creating value while making better use of resources. 

In 2023, the company formalized its sustainability platform and began dedicating additional resources to the effort. Today, its approach spans three areas: products, operations, and communities. Product efforts focus on advancing sustainable materials and collaborating with partners to develop lower-impact, circular solutions. Operational priorities include reducing its environmental footprint through waste management, water stewardship, and climate action. Community efforts focus on supporting resilience and health in the communities where they operate.  

“In 2025, we advanced our sustainability progress through clear accountability and accelerated action centered on what matters most: our people,” said Donald Wiseman, CEO of Teknor Apex. “I’m grateful for the commitment our team members bring every day as we turn intention into measurable outcomes.”  

A sustainability maturity curve also helps define where the company wants to go. The model progresses from activities driven by compliance and expectations through efficiency and long-term viability, ultimately reaching a stage where sustainability becomes a source of long-term value creation. 

“That’s really where Teknor Apex is trying to go,” said Brian Wojtyna, the company’s Senior Director of ESG and Enterprise Risk Management. “We want to be at that value-creator point on the maturity curve.” The company’s ambition is to become what he described as an “ecosystem magnet” for sustainable materials within the markets it serves.  

As this approach has matured, the focus has shifted from promoting sustainable attributes to solving real business problems. Today, the company emphasizes innovations that address customer challenges while meeting application and performance requirements. 

Sustainability In Action 

Teknor Apex is putting that strategy into action both through its own operations and the materials it develops for customers. 

Its sustainable vinyl portfolio includes BioVinyl® and Cycle-Tek®, providing options that incorporate bio-based alternatives and recycled content. More broadly, investments, acquisitions, and partnerships are expanding capabilities in recycled, bio-based, and renewable materials and circular-economy solutions. These efforts are designed to reduce reliance on virgin fossil fuel feedstocks and support end-of-life recyclability. 

Through its work with Newlight Technologies, Teknor Apex is helping scale AirCarbon®, a PHB biomaterial produced using captured methane as a feedstock. One recent example involves capturing methane from an abandoned coal mine in Illinois, and using it to produce the material, thereby creating a new use for a greenhouse gas that otherwise would have escaped the mine and been released into the atmosphere.  

The 2025 acquisition of Danimer Scientific further expanded Teknor Apex’s portfolio of companies. Danimer develops and manufactures bio-based and biodegradable polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) biopolymers designed to meet application performance needs while addressing end-of-life considerations. These efforts reflect the company’s broader focus and commitment to creating a lasting impact, while continuing to meet the performance requirements of the applications they serve. 

Progress within the company’s own operations is also producing measurable results. In 2025, Teknor Apex diverted 77% of its waste from landfill, exceeding its goal of 75%.  

External benchmarks provide another way to evaluate and demonstrate progress. The company earned its first EcoVadis medal, receiving a Bronze rating, and achieved Silver-level verification through +Vantage Vinyl®. 

“Accountability also means being transparent about where progress has fallen short of expectations,” said Wojtyna, noting that water consumption is one area where the company has not yet met its overall reduction target. Still, progress at individual facilities is demonstrating what is possible. In 2025, the Teknor Apex site in Germany reduced water-use intensity by more than 56% for the second consecutive year. 

That same focus on measurable progress extends to the materials developed for customers. Sustainability cannot come at the expense of the performance those customers expect. 

“Sustainable innovation has to perform in the real world,” Wojtyna said. “You can’t sacrifice on performance just because you want to have recycled content in your formulations and in the materials that you use.” 

From developing new materials and investing in emerging technologies to reducing the impact of its operations, Teknor Apex’s approach is grounded in measurable progress, transparency, and solutions that can deliver both environmental and business value. 

The Value Of Collaboration 

Advancing sustainability also requires working beyond the walls of its own facilities.  

As a compounder, Teknor Apex sits between raw-material suppliers and downstream manufacturers, so collaboration plays an important role in bringing more sustainable materials to market. Working with customers, suppliers, technology partners, and others across the value chain can help move ideas from development to scalable commercial solutions. 

“Sustainability is such a tough challenge to solve by yourself,” Wojtyna said. “No one company can solve those challenges alone.”  

Working across the value chain can help projects get off the ground and commercialize faster, turning promising ideas into practical solutions.  

That philosophy is one reason the company participates in industry programs like the Vinyl Sustainability Council (VSC). As a longtime supplier to the vinyl industry, engagement in its sustainability progress is particularly important to Teknor Apex. Through VSC, the company can connect with others across the vinyl value chain and contribute to broader efforts to advance responsible practices.  

The company also values the advocacy and education provided by VSC and the Vinyl Institute, as well as the opportunities these organizations provide to share knowledge and build connections across the industry.  

Participation in +Vantage Vinyl® provides an additional framework for measuring progress and pursuing continuous improvement. Silver-level verification provides third-party validation of that commitment and complements other external benchmarks used to support transparency, accountability, and measurable progress.  

Looking Ahead 

As Teknor Apex moves into its second century, sustainability is evolving beyond operational improvements to become a broader commitment to how we innovate, manufacture, and create value across the materials lifecycle. By aligning sustainability with product development and commercial strategy, Teknor Apex is creating value for both the business and its customers. By delivering solutions that address evolving regulatory, performance, and circularity needs, the company is reinforcing its competitive position while supporting customers’ long-term success. 

Sustainability is also becoming more deeply embedded throughout the organization, with teams across functions identifying opportunities to improve efficiencies, advance circular materials, and support continued innovation. Its position in the value chain provides an opportunity to extend that impact beyond its own operations by helping customers bring more sustainable solutions to markets. 

Looking ahead, the company plans to continue investing in its sustainability efforts, measuring and communicating its progress, and identifying new opportunities to create long-term value. 

“For Teknor, this journey of ours is all about continuous improvement and always making sure we’re doing things a little bit better today than we did yesterday, and making tomorrow a little bit better than today,” Wojtyna said. 

For more information, visit https://www.teknorapex.com/en-us.