SUSTAINABILITY
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Our LEED Alignment
The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) LEED® rating system presents a framework to help project teams identify, inform and encourage leadership in energy and environmental design.
Our commitment to building better means leading by example. Our associates have been USGBC members since the LEED rating system was introduced. Our Wisconsin manufacturing facility was one of the first in the country to earn LEED certification. This efficient new manufacturing center and offices, opened in late 2008. It was designed by Somerville, Inc. Architects, Engineers and Construction Services and was LEED®-Silver certified in 2009 through the LEED® Green Building Rating System™.
Staying on top of the current green building requirements, we continually update our environmental documentation and certifications. Offering inspiration, our Project gallery allows you to filter for those with published LEED certifications. Simplifying your selections, our Products section includes search tools for EPDs and Declare labels.
Now in its fifth iteration, the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED v5 rating system places increased emphasis on embodied carbon in materials, including glazing and aluminum framing, driving greater demand for material transparency through Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), Health Product Declarations (HPDs), Declare Labels and recycled content such as aluminum billet.
- Human Health: Selecting materials with EPDs, HPDs and Declare Labels helps project teams demonstrate compliance with LEED v5 building product credits. These disclosures foster healthier indoor air quality and occupant well‑being by minimizing VOCs and harmful chemicals, an integral part of LEED’s new emphasis on quality of life and human health performance.
- Climate Health: Under LEED v5, quantifying and reducing embodied carbon, especially from materials like glazing and aluminum framing, is a prerequisite for certification. Your transparency documentation (EPDs) enables measurable carbon reduction in the building enclosure, supporting the system’s new decarbonization goals across embodied and operational emissions.
- Ecosystem Health: High-transparency sourcing of recycled content aluminum and minimizing ecological impacts through responsible material extraction and supply chains helps satisfy LEED v5 framework goals around ecological conservation and restoration. Choosing manufacturing partners that track and reduce impacts contributes positively to ecosystem health.
- Social Health and Equity: LEED v5 encourages evaluation of social equity in materials such as fair labor, ethical sourcing and community benefit. By offering Declare certified products and third‑party-verified declarations, you support socially responsible sourcing practices that advance equity within supply chains and product manufacturing.
- Circular Economy: Your commitment to recycled aluminum billet, product take-back programs and design for material reuse aligns with LEED v5’s circular economy criteria. Products that support reuse and end-of-life recovery earn credit recognition in the new multi-attribute procurement framework, building toward a resource‑efficient, circular lifecycle.
Products that score in multiple categories, e.g. human health + climate health + circular economy, carry more credit weight, helping projects aim for higher certification levels more efficiently
Our Products & Services
Our EFCO, Tubelite and Wausau Window brand products, and Linetec finishing services, contribute to your energy-efficient, environmentally responsible, sustainable building projects’ goals. Along with contributing to building performance, our solutions also support occupant comfort, conserve natural resources, and reduce waste and emissions.
The aluminum in our fenestration and framing systems can be sourced from secondary, recycled content, offering potential support to the Human Health and Climate Health Impact Categories. In particular, our products’ attributes and benefits offer the greatest opportunity to contribute to toward LEED v5 Materials and Resources (MR) credits.
Our factory-applied finishes include no-VOC options and meet industry-leading performance for durability, minimizing maintenance and repair. At the end of our product’s long lifecycle on a building, the aluminum can be locally recycled.
OUR ENERGY-EFFICIENT PRODUCTS
- High-performance thermal framing to minimize energy transfer
- Sun control products for shading and cooling
- Insulating glass units (IGUs) to manage solar heat gain
- Eco-friendly architectural finishes
Sample Application
Let’s envision a best-case scenario for LEED v5 MR compliance. Consider a mid-rise office building planned for an urban area that seeks to maintain harmony with an adjoining wooded area.
The project team may select and specify fenestration products with:
- Expansive daylight openings and views
- Thermally broken aluminum framing with insulating barriers
- IGUs with multiple lites, thermal spacers, low-e and bird-friendly coatings
- Low-emitting or no-VOC sealants and gaskets
- Environmentally responsible, factory-applied low/no-VOC finishes in biophilic wood and earth tones
- Secondary (recycled) aluminum billet
- Local manufacturers and suppliers
These informed, smart choices will help support a sustainable, low-carbon footprint project. The next step will be to document the product selections and put the plan into action.
Using the LEED v5 MR multi-attribute compliance path option, the project team might:
- Chose products with an HPD, EPD or Declare label; and ideally, all of these. Please remember that an EPD only may be applied to one Impact Category.
- Ensure compliance documents are available and similar across multiple products, such as storefront, curtain wall and entrance systems.
- Select products with documented secondary material composition wherever possible. Remember to review the product’s material lifespan and its recyclability after its use on the building.
- Source and purchase materials and products manufactured within 100 miles of the project site. With supporting documentation, LEEDv5 MR values these products at 200% of their base cost.
LEEDv5 MR’s Building Product Selection and Procurement credit may award up to five points based on the following calculation:
Apogee Architectural Metals offers aluminum framing and fenestration products closely aligned with this program.
We are continually updating our environmental documentation, including:
We offer a wide selection of environmentally responsible, factory-applied low-VOC and no-VOC, painted and anodized Architectural Finishes.
Beyond choosing American-made products, your project may prioritize regional material sourcing. Our multiple Locations could easily be within 100 miles of your jobsite.