PITTSBURGH – The Master Painters Institute (MPI), an institute that establishes architectural paint standards and quality assurance programs in North America, has launched its Starting Point program for paint raw materials suppliers.

Since the year 2000, when the U.S. government dropped its federal paint standards and replaced them with the MPI system, MPI has published an Approved Products List of paints that pass its performance standards.

Now, under the new Starting Point program, MPI will invite paint raw materials suppliers to submit wet samples of their starting point (guide) formulas that feature their new or strategic materials. “We believe this program could make it easier for our listing paint manufacturers to adopt new technologies to meet MPI performance standards,” said President Barry Law. “The push towards ‘greener,’ more environmentally safe products has brought a lot of new technology to the market, and paint suppliers don’t always have the lab time, personnel time or resources to thoroughly evaluate everything they’re shown,” continued Law. “We think this program could save paint suppliers valuable time and resources in their work, and that will help them get new products to market faster and speed up acceptance at the end-user level. There’s potential here to move the whole industry forward more quickly to higher performance and environmentally friendly technology.”

The program is ideally suited for suppliers of resins, additives, solvents or non-color pigments who target commercial and architectural coatings applications.