Published On: Thu, Dec 8th, 2022

Recognised leaders for sustainability

Deceuninck was crowned winner of the Sustainability Initiative of the Year Award at this year’s G-Awards, in recognition of all the impressive work the systems company is doing to lower the environmental impact of its operations, develop next-generation products, and encourage a similar mindset in other companies.

“We are very proud to have won this award, because we know that we are putting sustainability at the front and centre of everything we do,” Rob McGlennon, Managing Director at Deceuninck, said. “While this award recognises the achievements we’ve made within our own operations, we are absolutely committed to helping our customers and suppliers lower their greenhouse gas emissions and their impact on the environment.” 

Just recently, Deceuninck developed a unique sales tool that leverages the current interest in energy efficiency and sustainability, and supports window companies as they sell modern thermally efficient products in a contracting market.

Hosted on Deceuninck UK’s home page, the Energy Calculator powerfully demonstrates how replacing old windows can save homeowners money while reducing their carbon footprint.

This is in addition to the multi-million-pound investment it has made in Europe’s most advanced recycling and compounding facilities. 

The new site in Belgium gives Deceuninck the capability to reprocess up to 45,000 tonnes of post-consumer and post-manufacturing PVC-U per year, which is the equivalent of preventing three million windows from going to landfill annually. Use of recycled material also reduces COemissions by 90,000 tonnes when compared to virgin feedstocks, as well as a 90% energy saving.

Deceuninck has also committed to cut CO2 emissions from its own operations 60% by 2030 from a 2021 baseline, and cut emissions from within its supply chain by 48% per tonne by 2030, as part of its wider journey to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. 

At the start of 2022, an independent survey commissioned by Deceuninck and conducted by YouGov, found that 63% of homeowners would be more likely to purchase home improvements, which they saw as being more ‘sustainable’.

Specifically, more than two-thirds of UK homeowners (68%) would choose windows and doors with a higher recycled content over and above products that don’t contain recycled content (or which did so at lower levels), and 38% would be prepared to pay more for home improvement products that had higher recycled content and reduced impact on the environment. 

“Sustainability is fast becoming a prerequisite for growth and profitability,” Rob said. “And awards like the Sustainability Initiative of the Year Award are powerful indicators of the hard work companies like Deceuninck are doing to improve their environmental credentials.”