To meet its sustainability goals, AGC Glass Europe has released its new third-party verified Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) for its standard float glass Europe-wide and a first third-party verified EPD for its Low-Carbon Glass. Aswell as its new EPDs, AGC has been accelerating initiatives to reduce the impact of its production processes on climate.
The company stated that it is committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. In the meantime, the group has set itself the interim milestone of reducing its Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions by 30% by 2030 compared to 2019.
The new assessment of the lifecycle of AGC’s standard float glass, the Planibel Clearlite, highlights a reduction of the Global Warming Potential (GWP) value from 11.6kg CO2eq/m² in 2019 to 10.3kg CO2 eq/m² as expressed for 4mm float glass.
The Planibel Clearlite third-party verified EPD features the lowest GWP value Europe-wide for standard clear float glass.
Low-Carbon Glass features a further reduced carbon footprint compared to standard float glass.
After collecting all the necessary data from two plants, Moustier in Belgium and Seingbouse in France, AGC released its Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) for Low-Carbon Float Glass. It was published in INIES, the French national reference database for environmental and health data on construction products and equipment.
This third-party verified EPD presenting the life-cycle analysis of AGC Low-Carbon Glass features a reduced Global Warming Potential of 5.5kg CO2eq/m² as expressed for 4mm float glass. This represents a significant reduction compared to standard float glass.
To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, AGC said that a holistic approach was applied across the entire value chain. Low-Carbon Glass’s recycled content is above 50% and it is produced with sustainably sourced raw materials in highly efficient melting furnaces with electro-boosting and renewable energy. Finally, transport between group sites for finishing processes is optimised.
AGC stated that professionals can use these EPD documents to help them make informed choices when developing more sustainable buildings having lower environmental impacts.
Low-Carbon Glass looks identical to and delivers exactly the same technical performance as standard AGC float glass. It is available in different product ranges and thicknesses and can be assembled in DGUs and TGUs.
As glass is endlessly recyclable, one of AGC’s main objectives is to use as much recycled glass, cullet, as possible in its production processes. Using larger quantities of cullet makes it possible to reduce direct CO2 emissions since cullet requires less energy to melt and replaces higher-carbon emitting virgin raw materials.
To source these larger quantities of cullet and help reduce its GHG emissions, AGC launched its Recycle Glass service. The service collects flat glass waste from industry as well as from renovation and demolition projects for recycling in flat glass production. For end-of-life glazing, AGC works with a network of partners to guarantee that the cullet is of sufficiently high quality for recycling.
