Low-carbon glass was developed at Saint-Gobain Glass

Saint-Gobain Glass has come up with a ground-breaking technical innovation, thanks to which they launched onto the facade solutions market a new glass with, so far, the lowest carbon content.

This unique glass, which is developed through the combination of a high content of recycled glass (around 70% shards) and renewable energy, is the result of significant research and development efforts and the high expertise of our industrial teams.

Significant reduction of the carbon footprint  

Considering that facades represent up to 20% of a building’s carbon footprint, this innovation will bring about a significant reduction in the construction industry and accelerate the development of a circular economy.

The low-carbon glass follows on from Saint-Gobain Glass’ first carbon-neutral production completed in May 2022 at their Aniche factory in France. This enabled the company to significantly improve their production processes and gain expertise.

Saint-Gobain Glass now integrates low-carbon products into their portfolio of facade solutions, starting with the COOL-LITE^® XTREME solar control glass line, without any compromises in terms of technical or aesthetic design.

The new products will use glass with an estimated carbon footprint of only 7 kg CO₂ eq./sq m (using 4mm base glass). This new low-carbon glass will be combined with the existing COOL-LITE^® XTREME coating technology, which already drastically reduces the carbon emissions generated by the energy consumption required for the use of the building thanks to its high performance in terms of daylight reception, solar protection and thermal insulation.

The resulting new product line will offer the lowest carbon footprint on the market with a reduction of approximately 40% compared to our initial European product.

Detailed data on environmental impacts will be documented through verified environmental product declarations given by a third-party – EPDs (or FDES in France) – which are currently in preparation and scheduled to be available in early 2023.

Orders from three main partners 

The enthusiasm in the market is demonstrated by orders from three major partners operating in the real estate market – Bouygues Immobilier, Icade Santé and Nexity, who have committed themselves to using COOL-LITE^® XTREME low-carbon glass in their projects:

• Bouygues Immobilier will install low-carbon glass on their Kalifornia office building (Hauts-de-Seine, France).
• Icade Santé will use this ground-breaking glass on the Polyclinique du Parc building operated by the Elsan Group in Caen (Calvados, France).
• Nexity will apply it within the Le Carré des Invalides reconstruction project (Paris, France). From an environmental point of view, these are undoubtedly extremely ambitious projects.

This ground-breaking initiative is the first step to expand the Saint-Gobain Glass’ offer of low-carbon solutions in various markets and is fully aligned with the Saint-Gobain Grow & Impact strategy, in particular with the plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.