Protecting the future with a circular economy
Circularity is becoming increasingly important as the construction industry looks to reduce waste, lower carbon emissions and make better use of finite resources. Moving away from a traditional “take, make, waste” model helps keep valuable materials in use for longer and supports more sustainable building practices.
Our low-carbon, circular and bio-based solutions are designed to support this transition. They deliver the performance, durability, and reliability you expect while helping to reduce environmental impact and enabling material recovery at the end of a product's life.
Designing for sustainability success
More than 80% of a product's environmental impact is determined at the design stage. Long before a product reaches the production line, decisions around material selection, durability, resource efficiency and end-of-life recovery have already shaped much of its sustainability performance.
That's why we apply our Sustainable Design Principles from the very start of product development. These focus on five practical areas:
- Sourcing materials responsibly, including circular raw materials, renewable energy and compliance with European REACH regulations
- Using resources efficiently, supported by low-energy manufacturing processes
- Designing for safety from the outset
- Extending product lifetimes through repairability and long-term performance
- Supporting recovery and recycling by enabling collection and disassembly into high-quality recycled materials at the end of a product's life
By embedding these principles early in the design process, we can significantly reduce environmental impact while maintaining the performance and reliability our customers expect.
Depending on the application and system boundaries, using mechanically recycled materials can reduce a product's carbon footprint by up to 60%, while bio-based raw materials can reduce it by more than 85%.
Low carbon products: reducing the footprint where it matters
The construction sector generates a significant share of global emissions through operational carbon (running buildings) and embodied carbon (materials, construction and end-of-life processes).
We're helping tackle this challenge by reducing CO₂e emissions at source. Our low-carbon products use mechanically recycled and circular polymers instead of virgin raw materials, helping you reduce embodied carbon without compromising performance, durability or reliability. Depending on the application, these products can deliver up to 80% lower Global Warming Potential (GWP) than conventional alternatives.
You’ll find our low-carbon products throughout our portfolio. For example, the following solution areas contain a range of mechanically recycled PVC/PP/PE solutions, bio-circular and ISCC-certified bio-attributed PVC/PE solutions:
- Drinking water and gas distribution solutions
- Sewage and rainwater solutions
- Cable ducting solutions
Even greater reductions are possible with bio-circular materials. Using ISCC-certified bio-circular polymers, selected Wavin products can achieve GWP reductions of up to 75-95% across product stages A1-A3 (cradle to gate), helping you make meaningful progress toward your carbon reduction goals. Discover how our low-carbon solutions can minimize the footprint of your next project.
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Sustainability starts with transparency
To help construction professionals make more sustainable choices, we use Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) and externally verified Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) that provide comparable data for specification, tenders and reporting. By providing transparent, verified information, EPDs support more confident specification decisions and help you align projects with sustainability goals, carbon reduction targets and reporting requirements.
Take Back Service: turning end of life products into new materials
Circularity only works when materials stay in use for as long as possible. That's why we've created our Take Back Service, making it easier to return plastic pipes and fittings at the end of their service life rather than sending them to landfill.
We collect, sort and process returned materials, helping route them back into high-quality recycling streams. This keeps valuable resources in circulation, reduces waste, supports a more circular approach to construction and helps our customers to take a full lifecycle perspective from sourcing to end-of-life.
Our Take Back Service is currently operational in selected countries, including the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Peru (availability varies by market).
Take-Back recycling & 100 year lifetime of plastic pipes
How we measure and report circularity
Choosing more circular products is only part of the journey. Transparency and measurable progress matter too. That's why we track key circularity indicators across our portfolio, including product recyclability and the use of circular materials.
Our progress shows what's possible when circular design principles are applied consistently. The recyclability of our global portfolio increased from 88% in 2021 to 91% in 2025, and has now reached 93%, exceeding our target of 90%. We're also working toward using 50 kilotons of circular material by 2030 as part of our broader Scope 3 emissions-reduction program.
We share this progress openly through Orbia’s group reporting, helping you understand how we're performing against key priorities, including carbon reduction, circularity, water management, safety and governance.