CASE STUDY: EMTEC
Publishing EPDs for Aluminium Louvre Systems

Project Scope

Following an initial review of the product portfolio, Cascade developed a two-EPD strategy covering Emtec's principal aluminium louvre systems.

The programme included:

A standalone EPD for Acoustic Louvres
An averaged EPD covering the LWH and LSH Weather and Screening Louvre ranges

The averaged EPD represented five core product systems:

LWH-50-50-SE
LWH-75-75-SE
LWH-100-50-DE
LWH-120-60-DE
LSH-50-75-SE

About EMTEC

Emtec Products Ltd is a UK manufacturer of aluminium louvre systems used within building façades and plant room enclosures. Its products provide ventilation, weather protection, visual screening and acoustic attenuation for commercial buildings and infrastructure projects.

As demand for verified environmental data is increasing across the aluminium façade sector, Emtec began receiving more requests for Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) from their customers. They approached Cascade to develop a practical EPD strategy that would provide environmental data across its product range while minimising the number of individual EPDs required.

The Challenge

Emtec's weather and screening louvre systems perform similar functions, although early discussions identified that the acoustic louvre would require a separate EPD due to the different functional performance of this product.

The LAH-150-105-SE Acoustic Louvre incorporates mineral wool insulation within each blade thereby creating a substantially different environmental profile compared with other weather and screening louvres.

The project also involved a complex supply chain. Aluminium extrusions and components were sourced from suppliers located in Spain, the UK and China, with sourcing patterns varying throughout the reporting period.

Some suppliers provided product-specific EPDs, while others did not, requiring a combination of supplier-specific and generic environmental datasets within the life cycle assessment models.

In addition, Emtec wished to understand how environmental impacts differed between powder-coated and anodised product finishes, creating an additional modelling challenge.

A Consultancy-Led Approach

Cascade worked closely with Emtec to develop a bespoke data capture approach for each of the individual products.

As mentioned above, the LAH-150-105-SE Acoustic Louvre was separated into its own product-specific EPD due to its distinct material composition and environmental profile.

For the Weather and Screening Louvre EPD, five lifecycle assessment (LCA) models were developed for the five products within the product family. The LWH-75-75-SE system was selected as the representative product due to its typical material composition and Global Warming Potential (GWP) performance relative to the wider range.

Doing five LCAs allowed the range of environmental impacts to be shown across the product family, of which the maximum and minimum impacts were assessed and reported within the EPD.

Production-weighted averaging techniques were then applied throughout the assessment to reflect actual purchasing patterns during the reference year.

This included weighting aluminium inputs according to supplier origin and purchasing volumes across Spain, the UK and China.

Where supplier-specific EPDs were available, these were incorporated directly into the models. Where EPDs were unavailable, representative secondary datasets were used.

Assessing alternative finishes

A particularly interesting aspect of the project involved assessing anodised and powder-coated finishes.

Most Emtec products are supplied with a powder-coated finish, but anodised finishes are also available for certain applications.

Because the two finishing methods use fundamentally different manufacturing processes, they could not be incorporated directly into a single averaged result.

Instead, Cascade developed a supplementary sensitivity analysis examining the potential variation in environmental impacts between the two options.

Separate LCA models were prepared for anodised products and compared against the powder-coated baseline models. The analysis focused on Modules A1–A3 and demonstrated that impacts remained within a similar range across both methods.

An additional challenge arose with this aspect of the modelling because supplier-specific environmental data was available for the powder coating process, while only secondary datasets were available for anodising. This meant the anodised scenario appeared marginally higher in impact than the powder-coated alternative, despite this not necessarily reflecting real-world performance.

To ensure transparency, the sensitivity analysis was presented as an annex to the EPD and clearly identified as indicative rather designed to offer a direct comparison. This provided Emtec and its customers with useful supporting information while maintaining the integrity of the published results.

The Outcome

The project commenced in September 2025 and was completed in May 2026.

Emtec now has two published EPDs covering its principal louvre systems, providing independently verified environmental data that supports customer enquiries, project specifications and sustainability requirements.

The EPD programme successfully balanced technical accuracy with commercial practicality, allowing multiple products to be represented through averaging while also addressing customer requests for information on alternative finishes.

The published EPDs now enable Emtec to respond confidently to growing customer demand for environmental data while strengthening its position within specification-led construction projects.

Partner with Cascade

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