Creating a sustainable future

Pete Grundy, Liniar’s demand planning and continuous improvement director discusses how the company is driving forward with sustainability.

You’d have to have been living under a rock to not know about the global environmental crisis. We have been hurtling towards it for a long time and if we don’t all stop and look at our personal and professional practices now, the future for our children and grandchildren will be very bleak.

But let’s be honest here – recycling and sustainable products and practices come at a price – and if the end users aren’t asking for it, is it worth investing in?

As an industry, we must change our mindset. It is our responsibility to educate end users about the sustainable credentials that our products hold. Yes, we may be innovating to improve the efficiency of products to reduce energy consumption, and with the rising fuel prices this has come into sharp focus.

But that can’t be where we stop. We all have an obligation to look at every part of our products and processes to reduce our carbon emissions as much as possible, which in turn will help consumers reduce theirs.

Sustainable product innovation

From its inception, Liniar has developed energy efficient products, including the UK’s first PVC-U window system with PassivHaus certification.

Liniar has also been instrumental in leading the way in removing lead from PVC-U, being the first to successfully launch a lead-free window profile.

Sustainable innovation is embedded at the heart of everything Liniar does. This is not a tick box exercise for the company, we don’t believe in virtue signalling. The whole of the Liniar team knows it is the right thing to do, that they are all part of something bigger – and this is echoed by our parent company Quanex, which is fully invested in sustainable operations and products.

Being an innovator comes at a cost. Recycled and recycling material isn’t free – and in fact, recycling costs the business more than making ‘virgin’ products. But we know this and we factor it into our processes – the team is proud to continue to innovate products that are part or fully made of recycled PVC-U material.

Optimisation of processes

As a ‘zero operational waste to landfill’ manufacturer, Liniar regularly reviews and refines its processes to minimise wastage and maximise productivity. Any profile scrap generated during extrusion changeovers is recycled at the on-site recycling facility.

We have reduced operational wastage to an incredible 2% but we will not be stopping there. The aim is to reach under 1%.

Education is key

I really feel that it’s up to everyone in our industry to educate consumers about how sustainable their fenestration products are. Whilst styles, energy ratings and costs are the key drivers at the moment, legislation is constantly changing, and we have to ask how long it will be before embedded carbon will be a deciding factor.

We know that the Government is already leaning towards procurement routes that include the embedded carbon of products and buildings and it is likely that this will trickle down into the private sector.

As part of our ESG focus, we constantly review every aspect of our business. Part of this is looking at the whole supply chain, from packaging to delivery – and another is designing and testing products and product enhancements that include or are solely made of recycled material.

Liniar has recently launched a new cill and thermal reinforcements made using recycled material – but this is just the tip of the iceberg, with exciting new products in the pipeline that we believe will be a real environmental game changer for the industry. Watch this space!”