The sustainable future of fenestration?

Social media, the internet and news outlets are a platform for global conversation surrounding sustainability, climate change and humanity’s impact on the environment; and as a part of the wider petrochemical industry, more and more eyes are centred on PVCu systems companies than ever before.

The future of the fenestration industry will be shaped by sustainability and how systems companies adapt and renew their commitment to protecting the environment. “Unplasticised”, but still thrown into the same category as ‘plastic’, PVCu has an uphill battle when it comes to educating the public on the product’s sustainability – and the fact that it isn’t related to ‘single-use’ plastics. One systems company has an ethos of ‘doing the right thing’ and has had an environmentally friendly focus for almost three decades: Liniar. Liniar’s eco-friendly commitment began in the mid-1990s when the company began recycling its PVCu scrap into new, fully and partially recycled products.

These products include piling, flood and retention solutions – which are then in turn used by other environmentally friendly agencies including conservation in the National Trust and by the Environment Agency.

Making Change Happen

Recycling PVCu scrap into new products isn’t the end of Liniar’s commitment to ‘clean’ manufacturing operations. In 2007, the company’s new purpose-built facility was opened. Flamstead House in Derbyshire was not only built to ensure operations were as efficient as possible but to make them eco-friendly too.

The building’s design included underground water recycling and an on-site recycling facility. Liniar’s product range itself is helping to save energy, with A+ rated windows and the lowest U-value doors now installed nationwide.

Its Passive House accredited EnergyPlus90 range is gaining popularity in self-builds where homeowners want a sustainable solution. Taking things up a level internally, in 2018 Liniar met with the Environmental Agency and agreed to a Climate Change agreement in a bid to be part of a UK-wide push to reduce its CO2 emissions.

Liniar’s Group MD Martin Thurley comments, “When we entered into our Climate Change Agreement, we also had the aim of securing ISO14001 accreditation - so doing both concurrently just made sense. We’d already been a zero operational wastage facility for more than two decades, so reducing our carbon footprint needed to go further than reducing scrap rates – when ours were already one of the lowest in the industry (less than 3% compared with an average of 10% scrap amongst comparable systems companies).

“Instead, we focused on making changes throughout the facility. We set off a series of project including replacing all incandescent lighting with low voltage LED lighting, installing new energy efficient heat pumps which don’t need fossil fuels, replacing vehicles throughout the fleet with eco-friendly versions with minimum emissions, installing low-energy extruders which produce twice as much volume with less power, and using metering and controls throughout all properties on the site to ensure heating is managed properly.

“These changes have been implemented over the last 12 months and the results have been excellent. We surpassed the Climate Change Agreement target by more than 63%, achieved our ISO14001 accreditation and reduced carbon emissions by nearly 18,000 tonnes.”

In the current climate, PVCu systems companies have an uphill battle to differentiate themselves from the negative connotations surrounding ‘plastics’ – but the work that Liniar and other systems companies are doing is making a positive impact. Sue Davenport, Liniar’s Marketing Director commented, “After seeing the amount of carbon we had saved over the last 12 months, together with all the other ‘green’ initiatives we’ve been undertaking, we decided to enter the industry-leading G Awards for Sustainability Initiative of the Year. We were delighted to be selected as a finalist!

“No matter who wins the award, we’re honoured to be a part of it and want everyone to be as passionate about safeguarding our children’s and grandchildren’s futures by protecting the planet and its environment.”

In today’s online world, consumers are more educated about the products they purchase than ever before – and being able to demonstrate eco-friendly credentials is increasingly important. For most businesses, making changes to shrink their carbon footprints is likely to have an impact on sales and profitability in the future.

Small steps lead to big changes… so how will your business make its impact?

For more information about reducing carbon emissions, please visit https://www.gov.uk/environment/climate-change-energy.