Sustainability is at the core of most industries nowadays, but it can be difficult to tell the genuine participants from those who are just giving it lip service.

A good way of sifting through the greenwash is through a recognised third party accreditation and few are more widely recognised than Global GreenTag, an Australian-developed programme recognised in more than 70 countries.

Dimond Roofing has been following green building principals across the industry for a number of years and has developed a fully realised sustainability pathway.

Dimond collaborated with their main coil coating supplier, ColorCote, to share important manufacturing data in order to assist them to develop an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), which is third party accredited by the Australasia EPD organisation. This was launched in April 2019.

Following the launch of the ColorCote EPD, Dimond then worked with Global GreenTag towards achieving their GreenRate certification.

“We looked at a number of accreditation programmes but were really impressed with the depth of assessment that Global GreenTag carried out and made the decision to engage with them purely because of how difficult it was going to be to get accreditation,” says Scott Morrison, Marketing and Innovation Manager for Dimond Roofing.

Global GreenTag compares products and services against a global benchmark for the whole supply chain and this approach challenged Dimond to look at themselves, and their suppliers, from taking the ore from the ground through to delivery of products to their customers.

“We worked intimately with all of our suppliers downstream in what was a fairly exhaustive process that took 12 months before we felt ready to present our case to Global GreenTag. We were immensely pleased in September 2019 to be awarded GreenRate Level A certification on all ColorCote roll-formed roofing products on the back of all that effort.”

For specifiers, installers and consumers, providing and having access to environmentally certified product options is becoming essential. Accreditation gives customers peace of mind that when they are installing — and specifying — Dimond Roofing products, they are using leading products that have passed all the requirements needed to achieve this premium accreditation.

“Throughout the accreditation process, we were able to identify opportunities to reduce costs, be more efficient and reduce water and energy consumption, as well as introduce initiatives that are designed to allow us to get continually better in these areas.”

“We’ve undertaken a massive amount of work in the past two years around sustainability and product development and we feel that we’re now in a position to take on a more leadership role, particularly as we move into 2021 and conversations begin to form around upcoming changes to the Building Code. We are very enthusiastic about being a part of those discussions."

Dimond Roofing is a member of the Sustainable Steel Council of New Zealand and is actively involved in its role as a board member. The company is also a member of the New Zealand Green Building Council and is the first rollformer to achieve Toitū’s Carbonreduce accreditation.

“We have been really heartened by the feedback we’ve received from the industry and from our partners throughout this journey and now, especially with Toitū accreditation, we’re looking at implementing further carbon emission reductions,” says Scott.

“This entire process has definitely influenced who we choose to work with and to what level that interaction will take place. We are committed to instituting environmental principles as a cornerstone of our business and we believe that our customers will reap the rewards of that stance.”