Invent Sustainable Buildings
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Invent Sustainable Buildings

Saint-Gobain encourages sustainable construction and develops innovative solutions for new and renovated buildings that are energy efficient, comfortable, healthy and esthetically superior, while at the same time protecting natural resources.

Promoting Sustainable Construction

Raising Awareness Among Stakeholders

New ways of building must be found to address the challenges created by the world’s growing population, accelerated urbanization in fast-growth economies and the construction industry’s major impact on the environment. Stepped-up efforts to build new buildings and renovate old ones are also required to resolve the issue of aging constructions in mature countries. At the same time, it has become urgent to limit energy consumption and raw materials use in the face of climate change and dwindling natural resources. No significant progress can be made without massive action in this area.

In The Front Lines

For many years, Saint-Gobain has been involved in local efforts to promote sustainable buildings by joining Green Building Councils (GBCs). These national associations of building market professionals and actors offer an effective forum for promoting sustainable construction. The Group belongs to more than 30 GBCs worldwide. It is also a European regional network partner, a Platinum member of the US Green Building Council and a Corporate Advisory Board Member of the World Green Building Council.

At The European Level

To meet the challenges of growth, energy efficiency and environmental protection, Saint-Gobain demonstrates through tangible projects how its innovative solutions contribute to sustainable residential buildings, offices, hospitals, daycare centers, schools and other service-sector buildings. Saint-Gobain has also helped to create and develop a number of local associations to generate support for energy efficient buildings, among them Isolons la Terre contre le CO2 in France; Spaar het klimaat in the Netherlands; and Alliance to Save Energy in the United States.

For Saint-Gobain, sustainable buildings are energy efficient, environmentally friendly, comfortable and healthy.

 

weber.col flex éco tile adhesive was developed in accordance with the principles of eco-innovation.

Supporting Customers

Saint-Gobain informs external partners, architects, builders and craftsmen about its products’ environmental performance by sharing the results of its Life Cycle Assessments and the contribution of its solutions to buildings that have received environmental certification (HQE, LEED, BREEAM, DGNB, etc.).

Develop Sustainable Solutions

Inventing The Solutions Of Tomorrow

Metrics are needed to gauge improvement. Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) are the main tool used by Saint-Gobain to evaluate the environmental footprint of its products and solutions. Rigorous and comprehensive, Life Cycle Assessment is the most widely used method today in the sustainable construction market. The LCA results allow the Group to understand where the main environmental impacts of a product are situated. They are also used to identify priority avenues for improvement.

Life Cycle Assessments have been conducted for all Saint-Gobain building market product lines.

Eco-innovation

Saint-Gobain is committed to providing customers with real added value by developing and distributing innovative solutions that reduce the environmental impact of buildings and infrastructure across their full life cycle. This is the objective of the Group’s eco-innovation policy, which is supported by tools and series of training courses. With eco-innovation, Marketing and R&D teams take environmental impacts into account as they create the solutions of tomorrow.

The Circular Economy

The building industry generates many types of waste. Saint-Gobain is responding to this situation by rolling out projects to recover construction or demolition waste, including by reducing waste at the source (notably through eco-innovation), sorting waste at worksites and recycling collected waste.

 

Setting The Example

To meet the challenges of growth, energy efficiency and environmental protection, Saint-Gobain demonstrates through tangible projects how its innovative solutions contribute to sustainable residential buildings, offices, hospitals, daycare centers, schools and other service-sector buildings.

Multi-comfort Program

With the Multi-Comfort program, numerous Group Activities have joined forces on residential and non-residential building and renovation projects. As a showcase of Saint-Gobain know-how, these projects comply with each country’s specific features while anticipating new regulations. Designed to minimize environmental impacts, the program focuses on five types of comfort:

  • thermal,
  • acoustic,
  • visual (attractive, with optimized use of natural light),
  • air quality,
  • security and modular (to adapt to changing needs).

Since 2018, Saint-Gobain has launched a new service to better support the certification of sustainable buildings.

This platform, which brings together all of Saint-Gobain Group’s activities, enables the players in the sustainable construction market to select the best Saint-Gobain solutions that contribute to obtaining LEED, BREEAM, WELL and other building labels. Also available in local version (Sweden and Spain), this site presents the local labels and makes available to many documents required for the certification as the environmental declarations of the products, acoustic certificates, VOC test …

In addition, training the craftsmen in the techniques of construction and energy renovation is a strategic challenge for the Group, which carries out important information and pedagogy work with professionals in the construction sector. Initiatives are numerous:

  • mobile trucks,
  • specialized counters in the signs of the Building Distribution Sector,
  • accompaniment in the field,
  • conferences
  • transversal or thematic training centers.
Creating green buildings