The Wood Window Alliance used its biggest Ecobuild presence to flag up the first results of a new study of the environmental performance of members’ products.
The complete report from Heriot Watt University is due out at the end of April, but at the show its findings on embodied carbon were unveiled. These showed timber easily beating PVCu, with figures of -13.7kg and 76.6kg per window respectively. Accoya and aluminium-clad windows came in at 15.9kg and 14.9kg, but this was attributed to the acetylisation modifying process in the former, and the bauxite smelting or secondary recycling impacts in the latter.
“It is a very positive finding for timber and has attracted interest here from specifiers,” said WWA spokesperson Barnaby Dickens.
Eight WWA manufacturing members had products on the 140m² stand, all underlining that they met a range of BS and BS EN design requirements and performance standards and were warrantied.
“Another key interest we’ve had is in members’ ability to supply conservation designs, but with low U-values,” said Mr Dickens.
The aim of the stand was also to flag up benefits of membership to other manufacturers, he added.
“Recently, for instance, we’ve worked with laminated component suppliers to provide members with easy-to-deal-with standard sizes, which makes sense for them and window producers,” he said.
