The Declarations, which have been certified by thinkstep-anz and verified by edgeimpact.global, cover assessments for the Flushglaze 125mm and 150mm Series, Structural Glaze 125mm and 150mm, Structural Glaze 168mm (thermal and non-thermal), and the Shopfront 100mm suite. These products are marketed nationally by APL and its manufacturer network under the Altherm, First and Vantage brands. They are widely used in window facades on commercial, retail, institutional and industrial projects. 

The declarations quantify a wide range of product parameters, including material and accessory composition, raw material and packaging use, resource depletion and climate change impacts, energy use, waste flows, end-of-life impacts and recovery practices. The EPD’s include imputed values involved in the extraction of raw materials and transport to and from APL production facilities.

The electricity used in the extrusion of APL profiles and value-added processing at its Waikato installations is credited as renewable through the company’s annual acquisition of tradeable Energy Certificates from Kawatiri Energy which runs the Lake Rochfort hydro scheme on the West Coast (the tradeable, carbon-neutral certificates are managed by BraveTrace New Zealand Energy Certificate System).

“This was a comprehensive assessment that reached out to include all of APL’s sister companies, all of which are part of Profile Group,” said a company representative. “Our manufacturer network was also involved in providing 12-month input and output data for such things as packaging, waste flows and energy and water use, so this exercise involved a significant contribution from a lot of people.”

The EPD framework not only included APL, but all Profile Group’s businesses that contribute to the window system — aluminium extruder, INEX; glass supplier, AGP; surface finishing subsidiaries, Finex and ColourWorks; hardware and components maker, APL Manufacturing; seals provider, PPL Plastic Solutions; and transport company APL Direct.

“Profile Group has invested heavily in minimising its environmental footprint and embedding recycling and circularity into all aspects of the operation. The EPD is for five years.