AVK sustainability project: initial results now available

Understanding and modelling the environmental impact of manufactured products is becoming increasingly important in many industries - and the composites industry is no exception. Consequently, many manufacturers either want or are required to assess this aspect of their products and components. Until now, however, the data required for performing a life cycle analysis (LCA) has not been available, particularly for the raw materials used in the production process.
Last year, Europe's leading glass fibre producers, under the auspices of the Glass Fibre Europe (GFE) association, collected and published key statistics for standard glass fibre products. Now, for the first time, the AVK working party on sustainability has collected data for standard formulations in the area of resins.
Three of the leading resin suppliers in Europe - Ashland Performance Materials, CCP Composites and Reichhold - have now consolidated their key data. The results show the impact of standard resins in terms of carbon footprint (carbon dioxide emissions), embodied energy and other environmental effects (climate change, water consumption etc.). Due to the significance of these resin suppliers in the market, this data can be considered representative for the European market as a Whole.
The results will be presented in detail at the next AVK working party meeting on sustainability, which will take place on 8 May 2014. In the next phase, the members of the working party are planningto update existing public LCI data bases and after that to develop a tool that will allow composites manufacturers to produce a life cycle analysis for their own components.