For many years, climate action has been a top priority for Döpfner, a window making company based in Gerolzhofen, Germany, established in 1906. The company’s wood and wood-aluminium windows are produced following stringent environmental criteria and come with an ECO-FOOTPRINT certificate hitherto unique in the industry. The people responsible at Döpfner always think holistically and down to the smallest details when it comes to sustainability. For their windows, they therefore opt for the future-proof and energy-efficient SWISSPACER warm edge spacer bars.
“Naturally different.” Under this motto, the long-established Döpfner family business, now in its fourth generation at the company’s headquarters in Lower Franconia, produces wood and wood-aluminium structures of the highest quality, no matter whether windows, sliding doors or doors. The sustainability of each individual building element – from raw materials to transport routes, production and recycling – is of particular concern to the two managing directors Frank and Mario Döpfner and their around 100 employees.
High-quality window solutions from native wood
As Frank Döpfner said, “We rely entirely on sustainably managed forestry and only use native types of wood from the region, certified with the recognised ‘Holz von Hier’ (‘Wood from here’) ecology.”
The manufacturer also underwent a product-specific and scientifically sound ECO-FOOTPRINT rating of its wood and wood-aluminium windows carried out by the independent experts of BS-Umweltberatung. The rating not only takes into account resource consumption, but also factors such as the impact of biodiversity, the possibilities of reuse and social fairness.
“In this way, our customers and partners can easily and instantly understand that we work with a significantly lower environmental footprint compared to other window frame materials and that we exclusively offer environmentally friendly solutions. It gives them comprehensive, transparent and, above all, truthful information about our products,” added Frank Döpfner.
Sustainability down to the smallest detail
Döpfner’s consistently environmentally friendly window production involves not only the materials for the window frames and the insulating glass units, but also the use of sustainable warm edge spacer bars. “Together with our insulating glass unit partner, we have opted for the SWISSPACER Ultimate and Advance warm edge spacer bars since as early as 2012. They are of high quality – as is documented with a corresponding Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) – and have a comparatively low carbon footprint, so they are a perfect fit for our sustainability philosophy,” explains Frank Döpfner.
In concrete terms, this means: SWISSPACER spacer bars for a standard window (double glazing) measuring 1.23 by 1.48 metres and a total of 5.42 linear metres, generate only 1.19 kilogram of carbon dioxide in the productions process. By comparison: When using plain aluminium, the material’s estimated carbon dioxide emissions are 2.238 kilograms for the same window measurements. This adds up to 88 percent more, not considering the further processing into a spacer bar hollow profile.
Boost energy efficiency, cut heating costs
Another plus: The warm edge from SWISSPACER significantly improves the U values of Döpfner’s window and door solutions. For developer or tenant, this means reduced energy consumption and lower carbon dioxide emissions. According to an independent study undertaken by the Passive House Institute in Darmstadt, the highly efficient plastic spacer bars achieve heating energy savings of up to 8.6 percent when compared to aluminium spacer bars.
Holistic and sustainable cooperation
Managing Director Mario Döpfner considers the cooperation with SWISSPACER to be ideal, “Topics such as life cycle assessment or carbon footprint are continuously gaining in importance and will become a standard requirement for every window or building element in the future. Already today, we can establish that our retail partners and our end customers ask for environmentally friendly products more often and request to see the appropriate certificates. In SWISSPACER, we have found a partner who shares our high demands in terms of climate action. So we are thus well prepared for the future.”