Aluminum Extruders Council to develop industry-wide EPD

The Aluminum Extruders Council (AEC) announced that it has launched a program to develop a set of industry-sanctioned Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) that will document the environmental performance of aluminium extrusions produced in the U.S. and Canada.

An EPD is an independently verified document that communicates information about the lifecycle environmental impact of the subject product(s). Created and verified in accordance with International Standard ISO 14025, EPD’s include information on the impact of raw material acquisition, energy use, emissions, waste generation, etc. In North America, EPDs are increasingly being requested, both to meet the requirements of the upcoming v4 of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Program and to meet the needs of other consuming industries that seek to document, and reduce their own environmental impact.

“We expect these EPDs to be the most comprehensive assessment of North American produced extrusions to date,” noted Jeff Henderson, AEC Director of Operations. “We currently have 11 AEC members providing information on 33 separate production locations and over 100 extrusion presses in the U.S. and Canada. In addition to the breadth of this study, we will also be providing previously unavailable detail, as we will produce separate EPDs for both conventional extrusions and thermally-improved extrusions – often preferred for building applications. In both cases, data will be provided for both mill-finish extrusions and for product that has been painted or anodized.”

Data collection for the project is well underway, and the two EPDs – for thermally-improved and conventional extrusions – are expected to be released later this year, likely in advance of the October 31, 2016 date after which LEED projects can no longer be registered under LEED 2009, but must use LEED v4.

Guy Charpentier, Marketing Manager for AEC member Bonnell Aluminum and Chairman of the Council’s Industrial Promotion Steering Committee stated: “This is an important step forward for the aluminium extrusion industry and for the AEC. We’re pleased to be taking the lead in providing the environmental information that is increasingly being sought – not only by architects working on LEED projects, but also by leading companies in automotive, consumer durables, electronics and other industries.”

“It is essential to add these EPDs to the resources the AEC has developed for our customers, Charpentier continued. “Providing transparency regarding our environmental performance with extensive, third-party verified data is a key element of aluminium extrusions’ great sustainability story.”