Vallox ventilation units now come with Environmental Product Declarations
Sustainable development and its requirements are increasingly taken into consideration in building construction. Seeking to promote sustainable solutions for our built environment, Vallox is committed to measuring the environmental impact of its products and communicating the results openly. Vallox has conducted a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for every Vallox ventilation unit type available in Finland and, based on the LCA results, drawn up an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) for each type. EPDs make it possible to compare individual products from the viewpoint of sustainable development.
Every Vallox HR unit now has an Environmental Product Declaration
Vallox is one of the first manufacturers in the ventilation field to provide EPDs for its heat recovery (HR) units. In Finland, only a few ventilation unit brands provide corresponding information on their environmental impact. Vallox is also the first to conduct LCAs and provide separate EPDs for all of its HR unit types. This enables transparent comparisons between different types. Earlier, a single EPD could cover an entire product category which made comparisons between individual unit types impossible.
An EPD contains precise calculations on the raw materials needed for a unit, its manufacturing stages, packaging and transport, and the use and maintenance of the finished product. According to Sari Ponkala, Head of Quality and Development at Vallox, the estimated life cycle of an HR unit is 25 years and it needs two replacement filters every year. The end-of-life steps, namely dismantling, the recycling of materials and disposal, are also taken into account.
“Unlike many other devices, a ventilation unit with heat recovery does not only consume energy but also conserves it. This significantly reduces the amount of primary energy required for heating. However, we deliberately ignored this fact in our calculations,” Ponkala says.
The life cycle assessments for Vallox’s ventilation units have been conducted by Comatec Group. Vallox’s Environmental Product Declarations have been verified by an accredited third party Miljögiraff Ab. The EPDs are published by EPD International. They are also available on the Vallox and LVI-Info websites.
What are the benefits of EPDs?
Environmental Product Declarations are an indispensable source of information for those who want to make sustainable choices. HVAC solutions often cause a large share of a building’s total life-cycle carbon footprint which is attracting increasing interest in the environmental impact of HVAC products. EPDs help all parties involved in the construction and ownership of buildings, such as designers, developers, owners and contractors, to make good decisions and reach their environmental goals. EPDs can be used to calculate building-specific carbon footprints and to obtain green construction certifications (e.g. LEED and BREEAM).
Sustainable development is part of Vallox’s operating policy. For Vallox, EPDs are an opportunity to continually develop and improve its operations. “Whenever possible, Vallox buys components from manufacturers operating in Finland in order to minimize transport distances. In addition, HR units contain a lot of metal which accounts for a large share of their carbon footprint during manufacturing. We naturally started thinking about ways to reduce the need for metal in our products. For example, we found our wall-mounting plates to be too large and reduced their size,” Ponkala says. In the future, she expects EPDs to help to identify new areas for development both in terms of products and operations.
What is an Environmental Product Declaration?
An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is a document that presents information about the life-cycle environmental impact of a product. Each EPD is drawn up according to the ISO 14025 and EN ISO 15804 standards and product category rules (PCR). EPDs are informed by LCA results which take account of raw materials and their transport, manufacturing, the use and maintenance of the finished product, and end-of-life steps, namely product disposal and the recycling of materials.
EPDs are always verified by an accredited third party. They enable a reliable comparison of products as long as the EPD of each product has been prepared according to the same product category rules (PCR). Product category rules describe system boundaries and functional units, for example.
Further information:
https://www.vallox.com/en/corporate-responsibility/
Head of Quality and Development Sari Ponkala, Vallox, sari.ponkala@vallox.com, 010 7732 229
Marketing Manager Elina Paavilainen, Vallox, elina.paavilainen@vallox.com, 010 7732 247