This report looks into the Circular Economy Business Model (CEBM) of Rehau AG’s window
solutions division. This is, within the Rehau group, the business unit which manufactures PVC
profiles which are used, later by their customers, to frame window glass in domestic and
commercial buildings.
The case-study has examined internal and external operations related to PVC profile production,
usage and recycling; interviews with relevant managers took place.
Given sustainability and cost considerations surrounding PVC, Rehau practices a circular sourcing
CEBM involving the whole value-chain in particular downstream actors such as customers and
recyclers.
o PVC profiles are delivered to its customers, the window manufacturers, from whom it
recovers the cuttings (the “post-industrial” waste / resource). This is financially
incentivised and enables Rehau to melt, re-granulate and re-extrude, i.e. use as a
secondary raw material in a circular sourcing process.
o Due to a long-standing landfill ban in Germany of PVC, the recovery and recycling of
“post-consumer” waste, is a well-organised business, in which, take-back of end-oflife
PVC window frames, is financially incentivised. The recycler shreds, melts and regranulates
this resource into a PVC-recyclate, i.e. a secondary raw material. Rehau,
and other PVC extruders, are keen to purchase this recyclate since it is some 20%
cheaper than virgin PVC. Apart from mild discolouring, properties of virgin PVC are
practically maintained in the recyclate.
o Rehau has innovated by introducing glass-fibre to reinforce PVC and thereby dispense
with steel content in window profiles. Such glass-fibre PVC (GF-PVC) window profiles
present a number of advantages in terms of lightness, thermal insulation and cost of
installation. To recover this new type of PVC, a specific tracing and sorting technology
has been implemented in cooperation with a technology provider. Indeed, Polysecure
GmbH’s tracer-based sorting approach is an enabling technology which, thanks to a
micrometric marker powder, is physically bonded to the raw material on a permanent
basis, and enables identification and sorting at End-of-Life. Thus a glass-fibre PVC
recyclate can be generated as a new pure segregated secondary raw material fractio
