In James Hardie completed its first cradle to gate life cycle analysis assessment in 1999. Since then, it has not only focussed its manufacturing operations on the three Rs of sustainability – reduce, reuse and recycle – but also on sustainable construction and industry education initiatives.
Reduce
James Hardie products include a number of low toxicity and environmentally benign materials which are comparatively low in embodied energy. Cement, a key ingredient in James Hardie’s fibre cement products, is the largest contributor of embodied energy. By working with cement industry partners and
exploring opportunities for energy conservation, James Hardie is adapting its processes and formulas to reduce the impact of cement.
Raw material inputs are not the only way that James Hardie is trying to reduce impact. Part of James Hardie’s whole-of-business initiative for increasing manufacturing efficiency focuses on eliminating waste and improving material yield. Addressing manufacturing yields is therefore another key step in reducing
environmental impact and James Hardie is making good progress in this area.
Our Australian plants are registered under the national Energy Efficiency Opportunities Act 2006 and James Hardie has implemented a number of initiatives aligned with the goals of the Energy Efficiency Opportunities program. At all production sites energy usage is compared with production output to monitor and, ultimately improve, energy usage efficiency. The quantity and cause of reject product is also analysed, with focus on waste reduction in order to save energy wasted making off-spec product and prevent raw material wastage containing embodied energy. While yield improvement efforts are taking place at all plants, this focus has helped the Australian Meeandah pipes plant make significant progress
in reducing its production of reject pipes.
A reduction in energy use has also been achieved. For example, lengthy steam reticulation lines,
which fed steam to the Australian-based Rosehill site, have now been replaced with two new boilers located adjacent to the plant. This has reduced steam transmission losses saving 4,000 GJ of steam worth nearly A$30,000 per year. In addition, reducing compressed air leakages and replacing motors with energy efficient motors has saved 3,188 GJ of energy per year.
Reuse
During manufacturing, James Hardie attempts to reuse as much waste product as is practical. At all locations, as much as possible, solid waste – such as trimmings, scrap, and fine particles – is reintroduced into the manufacturing process as raw materials. It’s another aspect of James Hardie’s strategy to increase manufacturing efficiency.
For example, significant amounts of recycled product off-cuts are used in all US and Australian fibre cement plants. Over half of all batches incorporate waste mix slurry. Water is a critical component of the fibre cement manufacturing process and process water is reused at least four times before it is treated
and released. The solid waste extracted is re-introduced into the mainstream production process.
In the US, one of our plants is implementing an ion exchange process that will allow the plant to operate with significantly less than half of the fresh water input that we currently use. In the longer term, the plant is evaluating technology and process control to allow it to become a closed loop facility. The continuous research and experience gained from this plant will also permit us to reduce water usage in our other manufacturing facilities.
Recycle
Recycling materials that can’t be re-used in the manufacturing process is a key aspect of improving our manufacturing efficiency and in the past three years the company has made significant progress in reducing the amount of materials sent to landfill.
One of the objectives of increasing our manufacturing efficiency is to eliminate offsite disposal of waste. In fiscal year 2011, James Hardie invested considerable time and effort to devise a process for reclamation and reintroduction of fibre cement boards from our manufacturing processes, which would
otherwise be disposed of in local landfill. The product of this effort is a robust process for recycling fibre cement boards back into the process.
The first of these systems is currently being constructed and commissioned in our Tacoma facility in the United States. The new system is designed to eliminate disposal of fibre cement waste in the local landfill, by enabling the plant to cost-effectively reuse waste product. The process is expected to be highly
reliable, requires relatively low energy input and generates low emissions. Recycling our entire waste stream back into the plant for reprocessing will eliminate up to 7,500 tons of material from landfill. The Tacoma installation will also provide a full-scale test facility, where we can further develop this process with the aim to eventually replicate it at other manufacturing plants.
We have been pursuing recycling opportunities vigorously for some time and are beginning to achieve some real gains. For example, in Australia, James Hardie has partnered with a large cement manufacturer that reprocesses waste fibre cement product and crushes it into a powder form to replace some of the natural materials like limestone. Other partners that manufacture road base materials are replacing sand and crushed hard rock with James Hardie waste and James Hardie also recycles some materials in the manufacture of pallets.
The result of these efforts is that James Hardie has been able to reduce the landfill footprint by over 80% from the Rosehill plant, thereby eliminating in excess of 16,000 tonnes of waste per annum from landfill.
Sustainable construction
While reducing the environmental impact of product manufacturing is critical, the fact is that sustainable construction involves far more than that. James Hardie understands that sustainable construction not only involves selecting products that are low in embodied energy (and a timberframed brick veneer wall has about two and a half times the embodied energy of a similar-sized, timber-framed fibre cement clad wall) but also those that:
- are low maintenance and extremely durable;
- can be put up quickly with few trades;
- require lighter building frames which are typically lower in embodied energy themselves (a timber-framed and elevated floor has less than half the embodied energy of a concrete slab) and have less impact on the topology and vegetation of a site;
- can be easily used to create energy efficient buildings in any climate; and
- don’t emit volatile organic compounds or provide a haven for mould.
For this reason, James Hardie continues to develop products that help achieve all of the sustainability goals above. For example, in the US, James Hardie unveiled the HardieZone™ System, which is based on the eight individual climatic variables that primarily affect long-term performance of siding. Using these factors we arrived at ten distinct climatic zones. Though different, we found common variables in certain regions, allowing us to engineer the HZ5™ product line for freezing, wet climates and the HZ10™ product line for climates with a combination of hot, humid or high moisture conditions.
James Hardie recognises that as a category leading manufacturer, product innovation isn’t enough. James Hardie also runs a series of industry-wide education initiatives.
United States initiatives
In the United States, James Hardie is actively seeking approval in leading green programs including Eco-Options and the ICC-SAVE program (Sustainable Attributes Verification and Evaluation). James Hardie is a member of The US Green Building Council (USGBC), a non-profit membership organisation founded
in 1993, and dedicated to creating a sustainable built environment.
The use of James Hardie products contributes points towards a LEED certification as well as the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) – National Green Building Standard. We actively monitor these programs and relevant developing standards.
Factors contributing to the points awarded to James Hardie products include our local manufacturing facilities, which reduce the environmental impact of transporting material, the low toxicity of the raw materials used in manufacture, and the longer-lasting nature of the materials which reduces maintenance and repair costs. The NAHB program also recognises the benefits of ColorPlus® technology for removing the need for site applied finishing.
Following the creation of the Streetscapes magazine and newsletter, James Hardie has established itself as an educational resource for developers, architects, builders and city planners encouraging them to incorporate more New Urbanist planning principles that create better places to live.
Australian initiatives
James Hardie held the second LookHome Green Design Awards in 2010 and featured the winners in the LookHome Design Annual, of which 100,000 copies were printed. With over 130 entries from around Australia, judged by an expert panel of architects and architectural publishers,the Awards successfully promoted the best in sustainable, affordable and innovatively designed and built homes.
In June 2011, James Hardie launched a new site and digital magazine for consumers and designers, called Light Home. Light Home aims to change perceptions of lightweight construction by positioning it as the perfect way to live in the Australian climate and helping consumers understand how to design and build with lightweight systems.
James Hardie is also well into the third reprint of the sustainable construction guide, the Smarter Green Book, of which over 100,000 copies have been distributed. It is part of a series of small books that include the Smarter Design Book, the Smarter Construction Book and the Smarter Small Home Case Book.
James Hardie launched the Smarter Small Home (SSH) in 2009. It was a built concept of a small, sustainable and well-designed home that James Hardie has promoted to Australian builders and designers. By 2011, 200 SSH spin-offs have been built or are in construction across Australia and a further 1000 are in planning. This number will continue to multiply as designers, builders and developers incorporate SSH principles as standard design and construction elements.
In 2011, James Hardie also introduced a new program for design professionals called ACCEL™
design. ACCEL™ design enables architects, designers and builders to quickly create realistic 3D designs with intelligent ArchiCAD® and Revit® content and easily calculate sustainability, fire and acoustic ratings using smart product calculators.
