The Aluminum Extruders Council (AEC) was selected among 38 organizations across the U.S. to receive grant funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The funding will support the AEC’s project to significantly increase the availability, quality, and granularity of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for aluminum extrusion products.
“Selection of our grant application is a fantastic opportunity for AEC’s members, providing direct support to develop EPDs and life cycle data being increasingly requested by architects, downstream customers, and green building programs,” said Tom Culp of Birch Point Consulting, the lead consultant on the AEC application. “This can be an onerous process for individual companies, so the EPA grant will greatly help our members by supporting the EPD generator tool and educational resources.”
The funding will support an AEC project aimed at significantly improving the quality and access to the organization’s EPD program. The project will work to improve environmental transparency, enable design decisions for sustainable construction, and support continuous improvement to reduce embodied greenhouse gas emissions in aluminum extrusion operations.
The three-year project consists of two main parts. The primary aspect of the project will provide resources to support development of an “EPD generator” tool for aluminum extrusions that will expand access and accelerate EPD development for aluminum extrusion companies. This also includes financial resources to assist participating extruders, as well as educational training support. The second part of this project will collect improved end-of-life life-cycle analysis (LCA) data on aluminum recovery and recycling from real building deconstruction projects.
Jason Weber, VP of Operations and Government Affairs at the AEC, thanked Tom Culp for his support throughout the grant application process. “Tom’s leadership in the application process was invaluable to the AEC,” explained Weber. “Tom’s history with the AEC in working on the Keep Aluminum Windows (KAW) campaign, various code issues, and now working with the Sustainability Team and his various industry contacts within the fenestration products industry continues to prove beneficial in moving the Council forward.”
Culp will work alongside industry veteran and AEC consultant Lynn Brown, Long Point Associates, who has led AEC’s prior initiatives to develop industry-wide EPDs as well as the current development of an EPD generator. Over the next few months AEC representatives and staff will also be working directly with the program manager at the EPA to ensure the successful completion of this program.