The fenestration industry should leverage its environmental credentials to attract new entrants. That is the call from Building Our Skills and one of its National Partners, CNC Recycling. The ‘Making Fenestration, Glass and Glazing a Career of Choice’ campaign and the nationwide PVCU window recycling specialist company have already begun to make inroads into this area.
Ian Ward, CNC Recycling’s Sales & Purchasing Director, explains:
“There are many potential new employees for the fenestration industry who want to do something positive for the environment through their career choice. In particular, this applies to the younger generation. We took an active role in the Building Our Skills’ industry-bespoke careers festivals earlier in the year, and were blown away by the level of interest we received from youngsters telling us exactly this. They simply didn’t know that landfill has been replaced by recycling, and that the main players in the PVCU window industry take minimising its environmental impact so seriously. With approximately 84% of all new windows fitted being PVCU in the UK, they could see that this is very important. By the end of their visits, youngsters and teachers alike had gained a clearer insight into this aspect of the industry, and went away with a far more positive view of it from an environmental perspective.
“I’m not saying that new recruits would necessarily want to work in the recycling sector, simply that they are far more likely to pick the fenestration industry for employment if they do not have negative or incorrect preconceptions about its environmental credentials. We’ll be continuing this work at next year’s BOS careers festivals too and I hope that industry employers get on board with promoting fenestration as a good move for anyone wanting a career in an industry doing its best for the environment.”
Mark Handley, Partnerships Manager of Building Our Skills agrees:
“When youngsters are asked to list the issue that they are most motivated by, they usually talk about the environment. For example, the schools’ initiative called the Pupils’ Parliament, bears this out. So, we are completely in agreement with CNC Recycling when it comes to making this topic a tool for attracting newcomers into the fenestration industry. Let’s really make some noise about this aspect of it. The work that CNC Recycling and others do provides a very helpful backdrop to this whole topic.”
CNC Recycling is a Middlesborough-based organisation, although it operates on a nationwide basis. The company collects thousands of tonnes of old PVCU windows and doors across the UK every year from installers and fabricators. This enables recycled materials to be fed back into the supply chain as a valuable secondary raw material to produce new windows and doors. The company collects over 1 million windows per year, and over the last eighteen months has collected from 1,289 window companies nationally. It has been proved that PVCU, due to its thermoplastic nature, can be recycled nine times without any significant loss of performance (Source: EPPA*).
Over the past twelve months CNC Recycling has invested approximately £2 million in state-of-the-art equipment in order to improve further the process efficiency of its ‘closed loop’ system. Closed loop refers to the no-wastage aspect of the process, which enables all parts of old PVCU windows and doors, including metal and rubber parts, to be re-used. The new sorting and separating equipment recovers clean white and ‘jazz’ (coloured) post-industrial and post-consumer PVCU. This recovered PVCU is now ready for further processing within the Fenestration industry and reintroduced into the core of new profile, keeping this valuable recycled material within the window industry and completing the genuine closed loop recycling.
Business owners who wish to learn more about how to use environmental messaging in their initiatives to attract new employees are welcome to contact either the sales team at CNC Recycling at email sales@cncrecycling.co.uk or by telephone 01642 983188 or Mark Handley at Building Our Skills at email markhandley@buildingourskills.co.uk.
Visit www.buildingourskills.co.uk for more information.
*EPPA is the European trade association for PVCU window system suppliers with its seat in Brussels. It represents the PVCU Profile industry across Europe.
