Sustainability
For us, being sustainable is about giving buildings a long life in today’s fast-paced world. Forster also ensures that resources are used as sparingly as possible and develops products that can be returned to the material cycle at the end of the building service life.
How are we making our branch more sustainable?
Raw materials and supply chain
Sustainable site, sustainable production
Products that use energy and resources sparingly
Recycling and resource cycles
Environmental product declaration (EPD)
Forster has 14 system EPDs for doors, windows/glazing and facades in steel and stainless steel. The EPDs show how seriously we take sustainability and that we are actively working on better solutions for the environment. We focus on protecting the climate, the environment and health. The EPDs are freely accessible and can be downloaded from EPD International or the Forster website.
Steel as a raw material
Long-lasting and environmentally friendly
150-year-old orangeries and factory buildings from the Bauhaus era show that steel is durable. It lasts as long as the building where it is used. This durability can be a decisive factor in contemporary building certification. Thanks to their outstanding static values, steel systems also need less material during production. Additional chemical surface treatment can also be dispensed with when stainless steel is used. Meanwhile, maintenance work is also significantly minimised over the years. When it’s time for the building to be dismantled, the raw material can be completely reused for future buildings.
Recycling and the life cycle assessment
Ready for the circular economy?
For many years, steel has been the most commonly used and recycled industrial material. What sets it apart from many other materials is its ability to be recycled multiple times. Steel can be melted down and reused an unlimited number of times. At the same time, its quality is maintained with each new product cycle – with the ecological footprint reduced each time it is reused. This was proven back in 2013 in a study by the Technical University of Berlin. No wonder that around 84% of the more than 60 billion tonnes of steel produced since the second half of the 19th century is still in use in the circular economy.