Leading British ventilation manufacturer Vent-Axia is celebrating Global Recycling Day, which takes place on 18 March 2025. Vent-Axia is committed to reducing its environmental impact and its strategy focuses on three pillars: Product – Engineer Sustainable Solutions; Planet – Improve Environmental Performance; and People – Connect People Together, and recycling is a core part of this vision. Vent-Axia’s Group’s sustainability targets include a goal of reaching 75% of sales revenue from low-carbon products by the end of FY2026 and for 90% of the plastic it uses in its own manufacturing to be from recycled sources by the end of FY2025.
Joe Brawn, Product and Marketing Director at Vent-Axia
Vent-Axia has undertaken a groundbreaking initiative transitioning from virgin to recycled plastic in its manufacturing. Vent-Axia overcame industry challenges by investing in R&D, supplier partnerships, and creating an industry-first materials database for recycled plastics, facilitating third-party product certification. Recognising these efforts, Vent-Axia won the ‘Low Carbon Impact Award: Commercial or Industrial’ at the 2024 H&V News Awards and the BEAMA Net Zero Collaboration Award for its partnership with AO, transforming recycled fridge plastic into ventilation products.
Fearlessly pushing industry boundaries, Vent-Axia recognised that transitioning to recycled plastic was essential for reducing carbon emissions and promoting circular economy principles. As the first ventilation company to set such high ambitions regarding using recycled plastic in its manufacturing, Vent-Axia initially faced a challenge since test houses would not certify products made from recycled material due to recycled plastic content variations and the absence of materials data. Vent-Axia paved the way by batch-testing recycled plastics in its own labs, creating a pioneering materials database to share with test houses, enabling product certification and third-party accreditation. Insights from recycled plastic research enhanced Vent-Axia’s understanding of materials, leading the ventilation sector with its knowledge depth. Meanwhile, manufacturing with recycled plastic reduces a product’s carbon emissions by up to 40%.
To achieve this transformation, it was vital to collaborate with a trusted recycler of plastics that could provide, the quality, consistency, and volume Vent-Axia needed, which was where AO, the UK’s most trusted electricals retailer, stepped in. AO has supplied recycled High Impact Polystyrene (HIPS) and ABS from fridges it collects and recycles.
“We are committed to offering more sustainable choices for our customers through continuously improving our products’ energy performance, reducing waste throughout our products’ lifecycle and significantly increasing the use of recycled plastic from the circular economy in the manufacture of our products. Our relationships with our employees, our customers and our suppliers are vital for us delivering on our goal. As such they are all Recycling Heroes as we work together to meet our environmental target,” said Joe Brawn, Product and Marketing Director at Vent-Axia.
Vent-Axia PIV
Sustainability has always been central to Vent-Axia’s product innovation. A wide range of the company’s products are now manufactured using recycled material this includes its award-winning Lo-Carbon Multivent MEV range which literally broke the mould as the first MEV to be made from recycled plastic. This transformation to using recycled materials has now expanded to other products including its Positive Input Ventilation (PIV) units and Mixed Flow In-Line fans, helping customers in a wider range of sectors make more sustainable choices.
By manufacturing ventilation units from recycled plastic through open loop recycling, Vent-Axia is using a sustainable source of raw material; there is a reduction in the embodied carbon; it reduces plastic going to landfill; avoids the consumption of oil stocks; consumes less energy than producing new virgin polymers; and follows sustainable values reducing human environmental impact. Vent-Axis is committed to reducing its environmental impact by improving business efficiencies and eliminating all forms of waste. This includes a focus on the quality of materials the company uses and the quantity of waste it produces to support the creation of a circular economy.
Global Recycling Day is organised by The Global Recycling Foundation. Recycling is a key part of the circular economy, helping to protect natural resources. Each year the ‘Seventh Resource’ (recyclables) saves over 700 million tonnes in CO2 emissions, and this is projected to increase to 1 billion tons by 2030. The mission of Global Recycling Day is: to tell world leaders that recycling is simply too important not to be a global issue, and that a common, joined-up approach to recycling is urgently needed; and to ask people across the planet to think resourcefully and not be wasteful when it comes to the goods around us.
Vent-Axia's Lo-Carbon PoziDry Pro PIV
Vent-Axia’s market-leading Multivent MEV range is now manufactured from a reliable, regularly available, recycled source of ABS plastic. This marks an industry step-change in ventilation manufacture, allowing Vent-Axia to produce the range in recycled plastic without affecting the unit’s function or award-winning performance. Designed to provide a simple and effective solution to help housebuilders on the road to net zero, the Multivent MEV range provides the ideal solution for new build residential projects, helping housebuilders meet DER requirements through market-leading energy efficiency and improving indoor air quality (IAQ) for homeowners. On top of this, the move to recycled plastic further improves the environmental credentials of the product for housebuilders and homeowners.
The Multivent was only the first step - Vent-Axia has shown further commitment to meeting its targets as it rolls out a raft of products made from recycled plastic including its Lo-Carbon PoziDry ProTM Loft Positive Input Ventilation (PIV) - key to helping social housing providers meet their environmental targets. This move to using recycled plastic in the PoziDry ProTM Loft PIV forms part of the company’s commitment to becoming increasingly sustainable, including using recycled plastic in an ever-widening number of products. Using recycled plastic for the PoziDry ProTM Loft PIV is designed to lower social housing's carbon footprint too, helping providers meet their carbon targets, while at the same time providing effective ventilation and a solution for hard-to-treat mould.
In addition, another product to make the move to recycled plastic is Vent-Axia’s ACM100 energy efficient Mixed Flow In-Line fans, helping commercial and industrial premises become more sustainable too. This move means Vent-Axia is making fans in recycled plastic to help customers in all sectors make more sustainable choices and they are continuing to add more fans to their recycled ranges.
To find out more about Global Recycling Day visit: https://www.globalrecyclingday.com. If you would like to learn more about Vent-Axia’s drive towards sustainability, visit https://www.vent-axia.com/about-us/sustainable. For further information on all products and services offered by Vent-Axia telephone (0)344 856 0590 or visit www.vent-axia.com.
Images © Vent-Axia
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