« Back to Facilities Management News Home
Excel Dryer, Inc, has announced that three of their hand dryers, the original, patented, high-speed, energy-efficient XLERATOR Hand Dryer, the XLERATOReco Hand Dryer and the ThinAir Hand Dryer, were evaluated, and their environmental claims, substantiated with the publication of the hand dryer industry’s first Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) by UL Environment, a business division of Underwriters’ Laboratories. An Environmental Product Declaration is a standardized way of quantifying the environmental impact of a product by studying the raw materials and energy consumption during its production, use and disposal. For buyers and specifiers, the EPDs are a disclosure tool that helps purchasers better understand a product’s sustainable qualities and environmental repercussions so they can make more informed product selections.
To create an EPD, there must first exist Product Category Rules (PCR) which create testing guidelines and reporting methods through industry consensus, thereby permitting buyers and specifiers to compare products, apples-to-apples. The corresponding EPDs provide insight on the environmental impact of products from cradle-to-grave. Last year, UL Environment selected Excel Dryer to chair a committee comprised of leading hand dryer manufacturers. Working collaboratively, the group created the PCR for hand dryers, a first for the hand dryer industry and the first global standard for any industry.
“I was honored to have been selected as chairman of the PCR committee,” says William Gagnon, vice president of marketing and sales. “Excel Dryer is proud to have been the first to publish dry time and energy use results of our three high-speed hand dryers to the new global PCR standards. We continually challenge ourselves to lead the industry, and when it comes to environmental sustainability, we lead by example.”
For a product to gain EPD certification, it must be studied cradle-to-grave by way of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) conducted by a credible third-party following ISO 14040 standards. Excel Dryer again called upon world-renowned Quantis International, with whom they previously worked, for their latest LCA.
“Excel Dryer has long-expressed a commitment to environmental sustainability and our credible, third-party testing results quantify and substantiate their claims,” says Jon Dettling, U.S. director at Quantis International. “We, at Quantis, are honored to have been chosen to play a part in the historic creation of the first hand dryer Environmental Product Declarations.”
Excel Dryer continually leads the industry with firsts including inventing the original patented, XLERATOR Hand Dryer that created the high-speed, energy-efficient hand dryer category and set a new standard for performance, reliability and customer satisfaction. Excel Dryer was the first hand dryer manufacturer to become a member of the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) and to commission an independent, third-party Life Cycle Assessment of high-speed, energy-efficient hand dryers versus conventional hand dryers and paper towels. Excel hand dryers are the first and only to achieve Made In USA certification. The publication of EPDs continues Excel Dryer’s lists of celebrated accomplishments and ushers the hand dryer industry into a new age of transparency.
“We believe we have again solidified our place as industry leader,” says Denis Gagnon, president of Excel Dryer. “Certainly, we recognize the significance of being the first to publish EPDs for our hand dryers but our ultimate goal has always been to see others follow our lead to allow for greater transparency in the market.”
Product Manager of Environmental Product Declarations at UL Environment, Anna Nicholson Lasso, lauded the manufacturer. “We applaud the efforts of Excel Dryer who was instrumental in obtaining the consensus that we needed to publish this first-of-its-kind global Product Category Rules for the hand dryer industry,” said Nicholson Lasso. “The development and publication of Environmental Product Declarations further demonstrates Excel Dryer’s commitment to transparency and encourages other manufacturers to follow suit.”
