Sustainability considerations for PVC windows as a construction product
Modern PVC windows bearing the RAL quality mark offer you many advantages: they are durable, can help reduce energy consumption thanks to their thermal insulation properties, and, depending on the product, contain recycled material. At the end of their service life, the PVC profiles can be recycled and reused as raw material.
Service life/ suitability for continued use
PVC windows carrying the RAL quality mark must meet particular mechanical and material requirements that are monitored regularly by independent test institutes. These requirements are usually more stringent than those of product standards. The same applies for the profile system, the insulating glass and fittings components, as well as the installation. This ensures suitability for continued use. For example, the table ‘Service lives of building components’ published by BBSR specifies a service life of 50 years or more for PVC windows; this table is used to estimate the life-cycle costs and life-cycle assessments of buildings.
Reduced energy consumption
By installing new windows, you can reduce your annual energy consumption by more than 40 percent if, for example, you replace 15- to 20-year-old windows – which became outdated by means of energy efficiency – with new PVC windows featuring triple glazing, as demonstrated by a study published by ift Rosenheim in 2026. You can identify good thermal insulation by what is known as the UW value. For double-glazed windows it averages out at 1.3 W/(m2K), for triple-glazed windows at less than 1.0 W/(m2K). PVC windows below 0.80 W/(m2K) are possible, if especially equiped, to meet the requirements of the passive house standard. Further information can be obtained from our system providers.
By the way: There are various funding schemes available for the installation of energy-efficient windows in Germany, such as those offered by the Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control. Further information www.bafa.de. (German page)
Clean indoor air
PVC windows do not release any harmful emissions into the indoor environment. The German Institute for Building Technology (DIBt) draws on the assessment scheme of the Committee for the Health Assessment of Construction Products (AgBB). Quality-assured PVC window systems must meet these requirements. We have set out guidelines on VOC measurements and specifications in our quality and test requirements in RAL-GZ 716, available under ‘Publications’.
Circularity and resource use
Rigid PVC has a particular material advantage: it can be mechanically and thermally recycled multiple times without any significant impairment to the material’s quality. The window profile industry has been making consistent use of this property for decades: in Germany, for example, old windows are collected through the recycling initiative Rewindo GmbH and processed into secondary raw materials. PVC recovered from old windows (in 2024, 87 per cent of old PVC windows were recycled) is specifically used in the core of new profiles and encased in virgin material at accessible points. This closes the recycling loop. It is good for the environment that there is no need to produce new material from scratch. This conserves valuable raw materials such as crude oil. As a result, environmental impacts are reduced. Every tonne of recycled PVC used in new profiles saves almost 2 tonnes of CO2 compared with virgin PVC.
VinyPlus® Product Label
The VinylPlus® Product Label is a sustainability label that provides a simple and reliable way of identifying high-performance and sustainable PVC products for the construction sector. It was developed by VinylPlus in collaboration with the Building Research Establishment (BRE) and The Natural Step. Programme partners, which include manufacturers of window profiles, undertake, for example, to use raw materials from sustainable sources and to promote PVC recycling. Further information: www.productlabel.vinylplus.eu
