Embracing Circularity: Windsor Doors Shines at VISION House Las Vegas

This manufacturer is excited about recyclability, emphasizing how even simple products like garage doors can greatly impact the sustainability of the industry.

Sara Gutterman, CEO of Green Builder Media, sat down with Hans Wright, CEO of Windsor America, to discuss the transformation of housing into high-performance, sustainable homes and Windsor's role in the VISION House Las Vegas project.

Curious for a sneak peek into their conversation? Check it out below!

Q: So, Hans, the housing industry is experiencing rapid transformation. What changes are you seeing and what are you most excited about? 

A: I’m most interested in figuring out the affordability challenge in a responsible way. We want to do it where we're conscious about the environment, the experience that we're creating for our employees, and the opportunities that we're offering to our employees and for our stakeholders. I’m interested in the challenge of how we do all that and keep the industry robust and the momentum of the industry headed in the right direction.

Q: Windsor Door is doing some pretty great stuff in terms of recycled products, especially your garage door products. Talk about what you're doing and how you're addressing sustainability, both in terms of your corporate practices and your products?

A: Well, the garage door, oddly enough, has a natural sustainability story behind it. Garage doors are 99% steel outside of the rubber and plastic on the rollers. Every element of the garage door has a significant amount of recycled content in it. When you think about the door being primarily steel, the unique thing about steel is that it can be recycled and its integrity is maintained, so you’re not compromising when using recycled steel. 

Making the world aware of our natural sustainability story has been something that we've enjoyed sharing and we'll share more as we go forward. 

We're sourcing all of our steel within a 400 mile radius of our plant in an effort to minimize our carbon footprint. We're also sourcing primarily from EAF (electric arc furnace) mills that have a significantly lower emissions over blast furnace technology. 

We're also experimenting with a carbon offset program, and we hope to have offset credits in place for somewhere around two-thirds of the steel that we consume by the year 2026.

Q: Are you seeing an increased demand from your customers for sustainability upgrades, features, and benefits? If so, can you cite any specific examples?

A: Yes! You can do right by the environment and also create a product that's going to last longer and perform better for the homeowner. A great example of that, we started manufacturing our custom products with a LP product that's a highly sustainable manufactured wood. 

So now we’re able to offer a higher performance, longer lasting product that is more environmentally responsible–we always embrace the opportunity to do stuff like that. 

We’ve also invested in our manufacturing capabilities. And, you know, we set out to put a  20% reduction to our scrap steel.  We put that metric in place about 18 months ago and wanted to hit it within two years–we hit it within a year. And we plan to reduce that number by another 10% in the next month or so.  

Q: How do you think that a project like the Vision House Las Vegas helps to propel the housing market forward in terms of awareness for sustainability?

A: The scale that Beazer Homes brings to the table is really what moves the needle. When a large, established, respected national home builder makes a big commitment like going net zero, people pay attention.

It proves to the rest of the industry that the movement is real and can be done while still striving to achieve affordable, sustainable housing. To me, that's the excitement about supporting this project.

Q: Is there anything in particular that you are most excited about in terms of Windsor Doors' participation in the project?

A: I'm just excited we get to talk about garage doors being a factor in this story! I'm excited for people to hear our story, that it's more than just a garage door. It's everything that we do leading up to it. It's the thought that we put into what we're making, how long we want it to last, all of those things. And it's a good story.

In some ways, we offer a very simple product. It's a garage door, right? But it's more than a garage door. If we can embrace this and make it part of the whole picture, I would say that most of our industry can do the same thing.

If we can do it sustainably and achieve lower costs, then it can be done in other places as well. 

Click here to learn about the VISION House Las Vegas project?