Saint-Gobain endeavors to provide the most appropriate and effective answers to sustainable development issues, by offer- ing highly diverse products and services, and using clean tech- nology, in several different areas:
●buildings that protect the environment;
●energy production, with materials that make the most
efficient use of natural energy resources;
●water, particularly in terms of its supply in developing
countries;
●materials, with services for managing solid waste and recy-
cling products at the end of their life- cycle;
●clean technology.
The market’s increasingly demanding environmental require- ments present a remarkable challenge to Saint-Gobain’s capacity for innovation, not only in terms of technology but also as regards new services to offer its customers. In November 2005, the Group brought together for the first time all of its “Sustainable Development” products and services for
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trade fair in Paris.
1. Buildings that protect the environment
Saint-Gobain produces building materials that, once installed, allow far more energy to be saved than was required for their manufacturing. They therefore contribute significantly both to energy savings and to reducing overall emissions of green- house gases. Such applications from Flat Glass and Insulation generate about 10% of Group sales.
Responding to the challenge of global warming, the Group has adopted a proactive communication policy aimed at
raising public awareness concerning the dangers of CO2 emis- sions from buildings.
In France, companies from the Insulation business (Saint- Gobain Isover, Saint-Gobain Ecophon and Saint-Gobain Eurocoustic) and the Flat Glass Sector (Saint-Gobain Glass) came together two years ago with other manufacturers of building materials to create an industry grouping called “Insulating the Earth from CO2”. In 2005, the grouping contin- ued to champion the following beliefs:
●It is already technically and economically feasible to divide
by four the energy consumption and CO2 emissions of buildings.
●For this to succeed, synergies have to be created between
insulation, glazing, ventilation, high-efficiency equipment and renewable energy.
●This objective calls for a concerted effort of all concerned
players, including project owners, project managers, compa- nies, distributors of building materials, manufacturers, banks and public authorities.
Toward this end, the grouping organized a large-scale adver- tising campaign in wide-circulation magazines. It also suc- cessfully lobbied in favor of a number of proposals that were adopted in the French framework law on energy and took part in many symposia, conferences and exhibitions (such as the annual Batimat fair in Paris). Finally, it launched a new standard of very high energy efficiency for the building indus- try. Two sister organizations pursuing the same goals as this French grouping were created in Belgium (Isoterra) and the Netherlands (Spaar het klimaat), at the instigation of the local subsidiaries of Saint-Gobain Isover.
A similar initiative was also undertaken in Germany, when Isover G+H created a CO2-fighting program called CO2NTRA. In 2005, this program selected four projects submitted by
ients of financial assistance.
Low-emission double glazing offers three times better ther-
mal insulation than standard double glazing, because an invisible metallic layer applied to one of the two glass panes acts as a thermal barrier. The Flat Glass Sector is stepping up its development of ranges of glass with reinforced thermal insulation properties. Its SGG PLANITHERM ULTRA N glass boasts one of the lowest heat loss coefficients (U) ever reached worldwide: 1.1 W/(m2.K), for double glazing in a 4(16)4
configuration with 90% argon filling. According to the European Association of Flat Glass Manufacturers, of the 765 million metric tons of CO2 emitted in the building indus- try by the 25 countries of the European Union, manufacturing of architectural glass accounts only for 4.6 million tons, but could contribute a potential annual saving of 140 million tons of CO2 if double glazing with reinforced thermal insulation became the norm. For households, the installation cost of this type of glazing is recovered in less than two years thanks to savings on their heating bill. Considering that glazing has a useful life of about 30 years, these gains add up to a substan- tial amount for the user. The use of this type of glass should receive a boost from efforts to ensure compliance with the Kyoto Protocol.
Rock wool is similarly efficient. It has been calculated that the
heating energy saved by insulating an isolated building is equivalent to a thousand times the energy that went into manufacturing the material. Likewise, a building insulated with rock wool can avoid CO2 emissions equivalent to more than five hundred times those generated during production. Other Group sectors also contribute to better insulation of buildings. Wall facings for thermal insulation of buildings from outside – produced by Saint-Gobain Weber and Saint- Gobain Technical Fabrics – or Lapeyre window fittings provide increasingly effective solutions, especially for eliminating thermal channels.
In addition to building insulation, the Group is actively devel- oping other energy-saving solutions. Its researches in the
field of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for displays and lighting certainly deserve a mention. Such LEDs will eventually replace electric lamps, as they consume far less energy than current lightbulbs and can offer a quality of full-spectrum lighting that is close to natural luminosity. The Pipe business has also designed cast-iron pipes for Canadian well systems, which blow air through underground pipes and use the ground’s thermal inertia to add 3% to 5% of fresh air in the summer
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and hot air in the winter to small-scale collective housing units. A first series of test installations has been completed. Materials produced by Saint-Gobain’s Insulation business also provide for the soundproofing of buildings, from private homes to multiplex cinema complexes, and raise the acoustic performance of public spaces like classrooms and activity rooms.
Several outlets of the Building Distribution Sector have also taken steps to raise the public’s awareness of the need to consider environmental issues in selecting and using building materials. In France, Point.P is building up its Mobissimo stores which promote houses with a wood framework, made from environment-friendly materials. The company is also aware that artisans are facing increasing pressure from the public and from new regulations to run “green” building sites. That is why it provided the 150,000 members of its cus- tomers’ club with CD-ROMs and magazines detailing how to carry out an environmental evaluation of their construction work and giving tips on how to improve their performance in this area.
2. Materials to generate energy
Through some of its current products and several research and development projects, the Group is making a contribution to the emergence of alternatives to fossil fuels, in the form of renewable energy.
In the field of hydro power as an example, the Pipe Division supplies equipment for the Norwegian market of micro hydraulic plants.
The Group also manufactures glass threads and fabrics for reinforcing wind turbine blades. Because these blades have very precise specifications and require leading-edge quality and reliability, reinforcing them is an application with high added value, for which glass threads offer an optimal solu- tion. Saint-Gobain is already generating €37.6 million in sales in this rapidly expanding business, with 25% growth on 2004. In the field of solar energy, the Flat Glass Sector offers glass panels for solar cells, which in Europe account for 90% of the market for thermal solar energy.
Solar cells transform solar radiation into household hot water or heating for buildings. At the Interclima exhibition in January 2006, Saint-Gobain Building Distribution presented a prototype for a revolutionary type of solar cell, jointly devel- oped by the Reinforcements & Composites business and a start-up called MIS (Méditerranée Industries Solaires). Instead
of the copper tubing found in standard flat cells, the heat absorber is composed of two thermoformed sheets of Twintex®, a composite material made of fiberglass and polypropylene. A glass pane placed above the absorber cre- ates a greenhouse effect within the cell. Because it is 100% corrosion resistant and 100% recyclable, as well as lighter despite its vastly higher heating fluid content, this new-gen- eration cell seems to offer a radical technological break- through. It would combine the know-how of several Group businesses, namely Reinforcements, Flat Glass, Construction Products, as well as, for its marketing, Building Distribution. Solar energy can also be converted into electricity through photovoltaic cells assembled in modules, which can be set up in buildings or in mobile applications. Each module includes one or two layers of glass with very specific properties. The top layer must provide great transparency, optimized trans- missiveness and the ability to weather outdoor conditions. Saint-Gobain Glass has designed two specific qualities of glass that meet these specifications, the extra-clear
“Diamant” glass and the “Albarino” textured glass which max- imizes light transmission thanks to its minimal absorption and using a geometric effect. These glazing materials are now processed at the Saint-Gobain Photovoltaic Glass plant, which opened its doors in October 2005 in Mannheim, Germany. In addition, Saint-Gobain’s Flat Glass Sector and Shell announced on February 2, 2006, that they had signed a mem- orandum of understanding for a joint technological develop- ment, to produce very competitively priced new-generation solar panels offering strong yields in electricity production. The photovoltaic cells designed by Shell are obtained by depositing a thin coating of CIS (Copper-Indium-Selenium) on a glass substrate. Saint-Gobain will contribute its advanced industrial capabilities in the areas of thin coatings and glass processing, developed over many years for the automotive and construction industries. Driven by government incentives, technical progress and falling costs, the photovoltaic glass market is expected to grow by about 30% per year between 2004 and 2010.
Fuel cells represent non-polluting local sources of energy
which are going to develop in the automotive industry and in residential housing. Several ambitious research projects on this technology are in progress within the US and European R&D centers of the High-Performance Materials Sector. This sector is also involved in other developments concerning
energy production and recovery, such as designing new tiles
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energy yields. The High-Performance Materials Sector also manufactures and markets optimized silicon carbide tiles for waste incinerators with energy recovery systems.
3. Materials for drinking water supply,
wastewater treatment and air filtration
By their very nature, the products of the Pipe Division pro- mote sustainable development, by making it possible to carry
drinking water and evacuate waste water. The first area of
expertise of the Pipe business was in the setting up of urban drinking water networks. Over the past twenty years, a new application has appeared. As the urban centers of developing countries expanded, their water supply had to be sought further and further afield. The Pipe business produces large- diameter pipes, of up to two meters, that are used to ship drinking water over dozens, or even hundreds of kilometers, to major cities. In many countries, such pipes meet a vital need. Saint-Gobain PAM has won approximately ten major contracts in the Middle East, Latin America and Africa, for distances ranging from 43 km in El Salvador to 138 km for the water supply of Dakar, and involving up to 400,000 metric tons of piping (for the Shuweihat project in Abu Dhabi). In 2005, the Pipe business began work on an 85 km construction project for the drinking water supply of the city of Algiers. The Group’s products are particularly well suited for this new application, because cast iron is an exceptionally safe and durable material – as hundred-year-old pipes in Prague or Montevideo attest – which requires very little maintenance and can be set up in all types of soils. In addition, because of their coupling design, Saint-Gobain pipes require very little technical skill for their installation. From an environmental standpoint, continual enhancement of the centrifuge process for cast iron has made it possible, over the past 15 years, to lighten the weight of standard pipes by 20% to 30%, depend- ing on the product ranges. This has reduced consumption of coke and other sources of energy, and diminished CO2 emis- sions during pipe manufacturing.
The Pipe business not only helps its client local governments organize the shipping of the pipes they order, but also makes available to them the services of its financial engineering department, that assists them in dealing with banks, insur- ance companies and other financial institutions in order to seek and coordinate financing for their projects. This depart- ment also maintains an active presence with major global financial providers such as the World Bank, regional develop- ment banks and European or Arab funds and gives its clients
and their procedures.
The Group also produces components for ultraviolet-light equipment that purifies drinking water, waste water or swim- ming pools in individual homes. The transparent quartz tub- ing manufactured by the Ceramics & Plastics business pro- vides an effective and environmentally safe means of killing bacteria.
Lastly, in the area of air quality, the High-Performance Materials Sector has recently launched a photocatalytic air purification system that uses Quartzel quartz fibers as a sub- strate.
4. Recycling or reusing products
at the end of their life-cycle
Most of the materials produced by the Group are recyclable, especially glass and cast iron, which makes them environ- ment-friendly. Environmental regulations require the follow- ing three-step waste management process: limited waste generation, recycling and storage of final waste. That is why, among the various services which Saint-Gobain offers its professional customers, recovering and processing materials at the end of their life-cycle is more and more in demand, since customers are now aware of the cost and complexity that landfilling these materials entails.
In the Ceramics & Plastics business, Valoref, a company estab- lished in 1987, is the European leader for recycling refractories. Valoref offers comprehensive management of refractory materials at the end of their life-cycle, serving the glass, chemical and steel industries by providing selective demoli- tion of furnaces, on-site sorting and removal of demolition waste, as well as advice and technical assistance. Each of its projects is based on extremely strict specifications, drawn up in close partnership with the industrial client. Valoref is then able to offer is customers in the refractories or ceramics manufacturing industries a full range of secondary raw mate- rials or manufactured products. In the case of glassmaking furnaces, Valoref is able to offer solutions in which 95% of the demolition waste is reused.
Consumption of recycled glass (cullet) from in-house and
external sources accounted for 52.03% of production in the Insulation business and 48.54% in the Packaging Sector. It is estimated that nine out of ten champagne bottles are pro- duced from recycled glass. To meet its needs for cullet, the Group partly draws upon external sources. The Group also has five glass processing sites, in France, Germany and Italy, which mainly supply the furnaces of the Packaging Sector. In 2005,
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Saint-Gobain directly processed more than 950,000 metric tons of cullet. Glass recycling is limited by the ability to recover “clean” cullet that is free of contaminants, particularly to produce flat glass, which has a high quality threshold. To promote glass recycling, Saint-Gobain Emballage has designed an itinerant educational exhibition entitled “Glass and its Recycling,” which is mostly aimed at children and young adults, since they are the best advocates for recycling within families. Among the materials on display are a 3D scale model illustrating the life-cycle of glass, panels showing all different types of bottles and various objects serving to explain the stages of glass manufacturing.
In the automotive sector, the European Directive on end-of-
life vehicles (ELV) has been causing the industry’s suppliers to search for solutions that they can provide for the end-of-life- cycle recycling of their products. Saint-Gobain has, since 2003, been taking part in setting up the European Recycling Company (ERC). ERC brings together expertise from several different industries to develop and promote methods for recy- cling thermosetting composite materials, which are widely used by automakers. This company has also designed its own “green label”, the ECRC logo, which will be placed on any recy- clable part made from composite materials that is produced by a member firm in accordance with European rules. Although this label was originally designed for the automo- tive sector, it will be extended to other industries, in which the specifications of certified products will similarly include plans for reprocessing at the end of their life-cycles.
In Building Distribution, approximately 10% of Point.P agen-
cies include waste recovery centers, where tradespeople can dispose of their construction waste before loading up their trucks with new construction materials. This new service also has the added benefit of giving Point.P a competitive edge. Some La Plateforme du Bâtiment outlets in France, Spain, Hungary, Mexico, the Netherlands and the UK are also offering this service, which has been welcomed by their customer base of building contractors and tradespeople as very convenient.
5. Actively contributing to the development
of clean technology
Glass threads serve to make composite materials, widely used in vehicle structural parts, bodywork and interiors. Thanks to their lightness, which saves fuel and reduces CO2 emissions, in addition to their ability to withstand shocks and high tem- peratures, these composites meet the highest standards for performance, safety and environmental soundness. It is esti- mated as an example that a bumper beam made of thermo-
plastic composite is 20% lighter than the same part made of steel. Composites now account for 5% of the weight of vehicles and their share is growing, to the detriment of other materials, by about 5% per year.
Saint-Gobain Sekurit’s thermally insulating windshields allow savings of 20% on air conditioning and 3% on energy con- sumption compared to a standard windshield, thanks to an invisible layer of reflective metal inserted within the lami- nated glass. In a standard configuration, such a windshield reduces CO2 emissions by 200 kg every 100,000 km. For a car’s other windows too, colored and reflective glass panes minimize heat transmission (by absorbing or reflecting it) and thus considerably reduce the need for air conditioning. Further, the thin automotive glass now entering the market is lighter than traditional glass and helps car manufacturers meet their objectives of producing lighter vehicles that con- sume less fuel.
At the end of 2005, the Group plant in Rödental, Germany,