NorDan Wins 2023 CIBSE Building Performance Award
We’re delighted to announce that NorDan UK Ltd has won a 2023 CIBSE Building Performance Award at a glittering industry ceremony in Central London.
NorDan UK scooped CIBSE’s Embodied Carbon Award for Manufacturers & Suppliers, recognition of the company’s longstanding commitment to both measure and minimise the embodied carbon in its timber frame windows and doors.
The awards ceremony and gala dinner were attended by NorDan UK’s Tom O’Sullivan, Lou Johnson, Mike Stevenson and Craig Greenwood.
Carbon neutral at the point of installation, NorDan’s products are manufactured from sustainably grown and harvested timber.
When combined with state-of-the-art manufacturing techniques, including an ultra-thin layer of aluminium, NorDan window frames offer market leading levels of insulation and an unrivalled 60-year lifespan.
This combination of zero carbon materials and an extended, maintenance-free lifespan has reduced embodied carbon to a minimum, delivering an increasingly sought-after solution.
The majority of NorDan’s products now also have third party validated Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), that audit all embodied and operational carbon in its products, giving architects and specifiers the transparent data they need to make low carbon, high-performance choices.
The CIBSE Building Performance Awards said:
The judges recognised a ‘holistic approach to the design of buildings, including envelope elements’ by naming window manufacturer NorDan UK as the winner of this award.
They said the company has clearly considered the whole life impact of its product – from manufacturing, operation, and maintenance, to end of life – and praised its award entry for including ‘good-quality data.
Such sustainability has been the driving ethos behind the company since the 1960s, so NorDan understands that Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) are key to allowing clients, architects and contractors to make informed decisions based on accurate, third-party accredited data. For this reason, it has detailed and wide-ranging Type III product-specific EPDs.
The full text of the judges’ comments is available online and below.
Alex Brown, Managing Director of NorDan UK said:
Congratulations to everyone at NorDan UK and our teams across Europe, I see this award is recognition of years of good decision making, innovation and hard work.
This is yet more good news after a record year of UK growth in 2022, and another marker that both NorDan and the construction industry are on an increasingly low carbon journey together.
For too long embodied carbon has been the emissions elephant in the room for the industry, and there’s still a long way to go, but NorDan is working with more and more customers who take suppressing embodied carbon seriously, and we will continue to do our part to work collaboratively to offer measurable sustainability and high performance.
NorDan UK would like to offer its thanks to CIBSE and category sponsors Buro Happold, and to congratulate fellow winners and those shortlisted.
Judges’ comments
The judges recognised a ‘holistic approach to the design of buildings, including envelope elements’ by naming window manufacturer NorDan UK as the winner of this award.
They said the company has clearly considered the whole life impact of its product – from manufacturing, operation and maintenance, to end of life – and praised its award entry for including ‘good-quality data’.
NorDan's products have some of the lowest embodied carbon in the industry because its frames are around 95% timber, and the company uses renewable energy sources and minimises waste.
To achieve U-values as low as 0.65 W/m2K, with air permeability of less than 0.1 m³/h at 50Pa, NorDan relies on the high proportion of timber in its frames. This also makes its embodied carbon figures the best in the industry (around 60kg CO2/m²) – meaning there is no negative impact on operational carbon performance to achieve such low embodied carbon figures.
Sustainability values have been implemented throughout its supply chain. For example, NorDan’s aluminium supplier uses 100% hydroelectricity; 25% of the aluminium it uses is made from recycled content; all of NorDan's manufacturing subsidiaries have 'green' energy suppliers; and, in 2022, there was a 10% reduction in factory CO2 emissions and waste. NorDan's factories are also located close to timber sources to minimise transportation.
Such sustainability has been the driving ethos behind the company since the 1960s, so NorDan understands that Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) are key to allowing clients, architects and contractors to make informed decisions based on accurate, third-party accredited data. For this reason, it has detailed and wide-ranging Type III product-specific EPDs.
NorDan is also finalising an embodied carbon calculator that will allow it to publish third-party accredited project-specific EPDs for every project it works on.
Uptake of EPDs by manufacturers, and consideration of the whole life impact of their products, were clear trends among this year’s award entries, which the judges described as ‘good quality’. Product innovation – such as the use of bio-based and fossil fuel-free materials – was also a noteworthy feature.
Mar 02, 2023
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