Responsible | with Bex McQueen, PGL Sustainability Lead

Listen as Bex speaks with Simon Farrell-Green, editor of HERE magazine, about our impact on the place we call home. Being a proud New Zealand business means we have a fundamental focus on sustainability, to ensure that the work we do treads as lightly as possible. From EPD and Toitu certifications to waste diversion and reverse logistics, Bex explains what that responsibility looks like. 

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Made here, for you is a storytelling series by APL & AGP, shining a light on the people, places, and processes behind New Zealand-made windows and doors. Every episode captures the craft, care, and Kiwi ingenuity that make our products truly local and built to last.

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“Made here, for you” stories of New Zealand-made windows and doors, told by the people who bring them to life.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:37 Bex McQueen's Intro
• 1:14 Sustainability and Windows and Doors.
• 2:15 A recycling programme for aluminium pulled out of windows made in the 80s or 90s.
• 3:01 General trend around material traceability and transparency in the supply chain.
• 5:29 Is it your responsibility to account for these impacts, or should homeowners also be thinking about carbon offsets?
• 7:14 APL's products and operations contribute to reducing carbon emissions.
• 8:37 How APL addressed the packaging waste seen on the building site.
• 10:12 Some numbers on the savings from APL's packaging initiatives.
• 11:03 How complex was it to implement reverse logistics for a company of APL’s size?
• 12:22 Other elements of APL's sustainability.
• 14:03 Can you explain what “diversion stream” means?
• 15:34 Partners who turn APL’s waste into something useful.
• 17:10 Tell us about Sanctuary Mountain.
• 18:06 In a cost-of-living crisis, why should people care about these sustainability issues when building or renovating?
• 19:14 Why is responsible local manufacturing of windows and doors so important?

Transcript

0:00

Kilda, I'm Simon Farrell Greene and I'm the editor of Hear magazine. Welcome to New Zealand Made, a series of podcasts we're making with our friends at APL Window Solutions. The question we're asking is essentially, what does it mean to build or renovate an increasingly global and interconnected world? And how do we balance a desire to reduce carbon emissions and improve the performance of our buildings with the ever-increasing cost of doing so? To answer this, we're chatting with the experts at APL on the latest developments in building tech and a few other issues as well. I'm joined now by Bex McQueen Sustainability Project Manager at Profile Group, which is the parent group of APL. Welcome. Thank you. Happy to be here. So, first up, tell us who you are, what you do and why you do it and you've got 50 words or less. Bex McQueen, I look after the sustainability and footprint reduction at Profile Group and it gets me out of bed because I'm doing meaningful, purposeful work that I can see the impact of every single day. That was brilliant. I think that was definitely less than 50 words. I think one thing that's quite interesting about Windows and Doors is you've got a really long lifespan and things will change. These things will be in play for decades. What are the things you can actually control? It's a great question. So, the great thing about Aluminium and when it's in a building is that it does have a really long lifespan and when it does come to the end of that life, it's infinitely recyclable, so it's still a valuable resource at the end of its life. But where we can focus our time and effort is on designing out waste in terms of our manufacturing process and really focusing on the sustainability of the packaging that we use and how we deliver those products to site and so that's around using energy efficient systems to produce the Windows systems. It's about using sustainable materials that we're wrapping around those products as they go out to site and reverse logistic systems to bring them home again and keep them in use. Right now, what happens with Aluminium if it's pulled out of a window that say was made in the 80s or the 90s? Is there an active recycling program for those now? Absolutely. That generally is something that's run at site level often by the builder who's doing the renovation. There's multiple companies throughout New Zealand that specialize in coming and collecting those Windows systems. They break them down and that aluminium will go back and be recycled through a smelter. And so presumably, if you think decades down the track when we've all been living with ideas of sustainability and we've all sort of improved our systems, those, the efficiency of that I guess will only improve. Absolutely. It's part of a more general trend, isn't it, around material traceability and transparency in the supply chain? Absolutely. And transparency is and the traceability is a huge focus for us and our customers. People want to know where their products come from and what they contain and that's right across the board. And so to that end, we've invested a lot of time in third-party independent certifications to demonstrate the impact of and the footprint of our products. And so this takes the form of environmental product declarations, which are a science-based data set which informs architects, customers about the impact of our products. We've also spent time certifying our product, certifying our products with declare, which is if you think of like a nutritional panel for construction products predominantly. And so it lets the customer who or the architect know what ingredients make up that product and also more importantly what ingredients aren't part of the product in terms of harmful chemicals and things like that. So these kind of certifications give that to reassurance and authenticity to our products and a real open transparency of what's in and what's out. Can you give us some examples of the traceability and that sort of thing. Like a material, what information you would you might provide and and what information I would get as somebody looking at using your products. So when we talk about environmental product declarations, this is essentially like a cradle to grave life cycle assessment of the product. So when we're talking about New Zealand made products, these environmental product declarations give fully accounted values for the impact of the product from cradle. So from the smelter right through two graves. So end of life. And so it means all the logistics, transportation, packaging, every part of the product's life at every stage is fully accounted for. And that's that real transparency piece where there's no stone left unturned or no hot spot sort of shoved off into the corner and hidden behind a curtain. It is all out there and and fully accounted for. And the great thing about that is it also then provides you a roadmap for improvement in terms of reduction of those impact numbers. So that's that's an interesting question because is it your responsibility to start to I guess account for those impacts or is that something that we as homeowners might like to start thinking about in terms of carbon offsets or whatever. What's the what's the state of play on that sort of thing? I think it's everyone's just possibly because we all live here on on the span of earth. But from a profile group and APL point of view, it's very much our responsibility. And so we talked a touch earlier or before on end of life. But we spend a lot of time and focus and effort on the designing out waste from the beginning and and the impacts of our operations as well. So that sort of middle part of the life cycle of the product because that's where we can exert and you know we can exert a lot of influence and and pull a lot of levers. And so that's where a lot of our focuses and when I talk about the the roadmap and those baseline numbers from the EPDs and that's sort of the life cycle assessments that we have done. That provides us a roadmap of where do we spend our time in terms of reduction of those carbon emissions? What sort of targets do we set in place? And that's where we kind of start looking at extrusion and glass and go, hey, how what can we do here to bring these numbers down? So it's not just about having transparency and certifications and taking a box. It's actually using those as a baseline for improving how we how we manufacture an hour impact on the community around us. So yeah, rather than just going, oh, there's the number, okay, we move on, we change our processes, we improve all that sort of stuff. Yeah, as a country, we're trying to reduce carbon emissions. For APL, that's about how your products perform once they're in the houses, but it's also in the cost of your operations. Tell us a bit about that. For sure. So yeah, there's no doubt that our products go a long way to increase the thermal efficiency of a home and thereby reducing power usage. But operationally for us, there's a huge opportunity for cut in carbon reduction. And as I touched on before, our certifications that have given us a really clear insight into the baseline science-based data for our impact. That's given us a pathway for improvement. It's at highlights to us where our hotspots are and where those potential gains and impact reduction are for us. And so that's in things like looking at extrusion, glass, and also packaging is a really important one and one that we've spent a lot of time working to improve. So the certifications allow us to have a baseline that we can then set targets and improvements and look to measure how we track against those going forward. And it is an ever-evolving process you're never done and it's something that we're sort of continually improving on. Packaging thing is really interesting. I mean, there's the product and then there's what it comes in. Whenever I walk past a building site, I just sort of see the skips full of polystyrene and shrink wrap and you think, well, surely we can do this better. Absolutely. So I think an average three-bedroom home new build in New Zealand generates around five tons of construction waste. And so we really saw a big opportunity for improving the packaging that we were sending out of our site every day. And I think that's the beauty of being an New Zealand-based business and having this level of care for the communities that we work in is we have that ability to be responsible for what we're sending out beyond once it leaves our factory. And so for us, this came to life in the form of establishing reverse logistics systems through our own logistics fleet to once a product was delivered to site or to our fabricator network, which actually bring that packaging back and reuse it. So we've invested a huge amount of time finding viable, sustainable alternatives to traditional packaging materials like polystyrene, virgin timber. And so our aim is to have a closed loop of circular materials that are endlessly in use and don't even go into any sort of recycling streams. And therefore they retain those resources, those material resources don't actually become waste in a skip on a building site. They retain their value and through that closed loop are used over and over again. So give us some firm numbers on that. How much have you actually saved? So in the three months since we've pulled out polystyrene from our supply chain and replaced with these textile pillows, we've saved 100 cubic metres of polystyrene and over a year that it will be talking over a thousand cubic metres of polystyrene saved from landfill. Similarly, we've saved a million kilos of virgin timber from landfill by taking that out of our system and replacing with a circular material instead. These materials, the textile pillows and the cleats, they all come back to us in a reverse logistics system and it endlessly flow through our network over and over again and completely avoid landfill. That sounds really simple, institute reverse logistics. For a company of your size, how long did that take, how complex a process is that to bring stuff back as well as send stuff out? It is a complex process and there's the practical logistical side of establishing that system nationwide. There's also the hearts and minds and making sure that you're bringing people along on the journey and that they understand the why and the importance of and the value of what they're doing and I think that's often where data and numbers can be really powerful. When you can kind of get these numbers like, oh, we're saving a hundred thousand kilos of timber from landfill every year or those kind of things and then you kind of humanise that data and put it into a context. People can understand that and really buy into that. So there's the logistical piece which has a lot of work involved with it. There's also the emotional side of it and why do we do this and why do we care about this and at the end of the day, no matter who you're talking to, there's a reason why they're caring about the community and the land that we live on and keeping it healthy for future generations. So there's a big focus on carbon emissions and carbon reduction but what are the other elements of sustainability that you're working on? So we spend a lot of time focusing on waste and waste diversion and so that is essentially us trying to reduce what we seem to landfill by using existing diversion streams or establishing diversion streams for materials that we want trying to get out of landfill. So across the business units and profile group, we perform bi-monthly and quarterly waste audits by an independent company, tells us what's going into our landfill bins. From there we've seen projects based on what's in those bins and trying to establish diversion streams. So this work and this focus has been in play for a number of years now and through education campaigns with our staff and with our fabricator network, we're seeing some amazing diversion sets come through which is extremely motivating for the group and in my mind equally as important as focusing on those carbon emissions impact reduction numbers as well. The waste diversion, everybody lives not too far from a landfill. So when we're talking about diverting Olympic size swimming, multiple Olympic size swimming pool equivalents of waste from landfill to diversion streams year on year, that's a huge impact reduction and is massively worthy of celebration too in my mind. So a diversion stream is like a catch all for can we find a standard recycling system for this, like there's an established one for cardboard or we've got this thing that there isn't a standard program for let's make a such and such out of it, is that is that why you use that word? Yes, so when we talk about diversion streams, there are some that are already established and let you say those, those well-known ones that we use in our households like cardboard, plastics that are numbered one and two glass things like that. What we find useful with doing the waste audits is once we start to see our materials and our landfill bins audited and categorized, we can start to say, hey, you know, month on month, 25 to 30 percent of our landfill bin is such and such material, for example, say PET strapping. So then we're like, what can we do with that? Because this is contributing a huge amount to landfill, month on month. How might we divert that? And so that's when the beauty of those waste audits is it helps us focus where we spend our time and what projects we work on in terms of reducing that landfill amount. And the great thing about this area of work is we're helping our fabricator network do this as well. So we're continuing to sort of spread the knowledge and that overall impact reduction from the, I guess, the life cycle of our window system. So then you kind of go looking for a partner or someone who could turn your strapping into XYZ. Yep, absolutely. That's still of use to you. Yep. And my biggest advice for people in this industry is as partnerships and the value of those partnerships is not doing it alone because oftentimes like your problem is something that someone else is battling with as well. There's some great not-for-profit organisations throughout New Zealand that help that you can lean on for support. So hey, we've got this material. We don't really know what to do with that. And there's so much innovation in this space in terms of companies popping up to deal with innovative solutions to deal with different material streams. Future posters are a great one, taking soft plastic waste and turning it into fence posts for agriculture industry, things like that. I touched on our textile pillows before. So they come from a company here in Auckland who take textile waste, recycler and turn it into other materials. And so basically that's a great example of diversion and practice, right? So textile waste that would have ordinarily gone to landfill. Being made into these pillows, coming into our packaging cycle and then these are reused endlessly until they start to break down. And then they go back to textile waste, get reground, re-created into the pillows and come back to us. And that's that closed loop that we're really striving for as keeping materials out of waste and placing a value of one moment, keeping them in use for as long as possible. It's taught me a bit about sanctuary mountain because it's a really interesting project. It is. And it's another example of a powerful partnership and play to support sustainability. So sanctuary mountain is very local to us. It's a 3,400 hectare fully-fenced pest proof conservation project focusing on restoring native biodiversity and supporting endangered species like the Kiwi. And so profile group has for a number of years now partnered with them to support their work in that space. It's the world's largest fully-fenced conservation project and pest proofed area. And it's something that's very close to where the business first began over 50 years ago. It's close to Hotape, where our new factory site is very close to our hearts. So we're in a cost of loving crisis. The cost of building has really gone up in recent years. And I think anyone building or renovating is really quite conscious of cost. Why should people care about these issues? Your right cost is front of mind for people right now. But what needs to be better understood is that sustainability and being cost conscious don't need to be at odds with one another. I think these energy efficient sustainably produced products and window systems save money in the long run. And when we're talking about products that increase the energy efficiency of the home and people living in healthier homes, we're building more sustainable and better homes for future generations. So that is why people should care that the products that they're using in their homes have been responsibly produced by companies that are trying to tread more lightly and that when the children are sleeping in these homes, that these are healthy, thermally efficient homes made by low carbon-impact products. Why is responsible local manufacturing so important? What's kept you in this industry all this time? Well, so New Zealand made means full responsibility. So we're producing these low-impact products and we're taking care for the environment that we're producing them in. For me personally, it's the knowledge that I'm making a tangible impact every single day. So I can see the value in what I'm doing and what we're doing as a business. And that's evident through the data that I can collect through waste audits or diversion or changing out a not-so-great material for another packaging material and actually knowing what we're taking out of landfill and keeping in use, things like that, that's powerful stuff. And once you start humanising that data and ensuring it in terms either internally or externally and you see that those light bulb moments for other people as well, that's the heart of it. That's why I do what I do and that's the value in what we do is bringing people along on the journey and helping them understand the impact of these projects and these initiatives and these focuses is that we're all understanding that we're contributing to a better tomorrow essentially. That's brilliant. That was Bex McQueen Sustainability Project Manager at Profile Group, the parent group of APL. Thanks Bex. Thank you.