July 16, 2024

On July 16, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the Aluminum Extruders Council (AEC) was selected as one of 38 organizations across the U.S. to receive grant funding. Read the entire announcement here.

AEC’s project is aimed at significantly increasing the availability, quality and granularity of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for aluminum extrusion products to improve environmental transparency, enable design decisions for sustainable construction, and support continuous improvement to reduce embodied greenhouse gas emissions. The three-year project consists of two main parts. The primary aspect of this 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.

“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. 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,” said Tom Culp of Birch Point Consulting, the lead consultant on the AEC application.

“Tom’s leadership in the application process was invaluable to the AEC,” said Jason Weber, AEC’s VP of Operations. “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 fenestration products continue to prove beneficial in moving the AEC forward,” Weber concluded. Tom 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 be working directly with the Program Manager at the EPA to ensure the successful completion of this program.