British Glass Annual Glass Focus Conference 2015

The British Glass Manufacturers’ Confederation held its annual Glass Focus Conference on 12th June 2015 at the Marriot Renaissance Hotel in Manchester, with an evening dinner incorporating the second annual Glass Focus Industry Awards.

Themed ‘Innovation within glass and the supply chain’, this year’s conference focused on potential developments within glass, the economy, manufacturing and glass technology and the potential impact on the glass industry and its supply chain.

Keynote speeches included Alan Norbury, Chief Technology Officer at Siemens speaking on Industry 4.0: the next industrial revolution, and Rain Newton-Smith, the CBI’s Director of Economics, on the current economic situation and future outlook.

The break-out sessions saw SORG discuss developments in furnace technologies, Dow Corning and ARUP covered glass trends in architecture, in addition to discussions on waste heat recovery technology, manufacturing trends, advancements in glass research, health and safety updates and the latest developments and challenges in glass packaging.

The conference attracted over 130 delegates from the UK and internationally with senior representatives from across the glass supply chain, including glass manufacturers, processors, brand owners, architects and raw material suppliers.

Dave Dalton, CEO of British Glass, said:

"The future promises many exciting opportunities for the glass sector and for the possibilities of glass as a material so it was once again fantastic to see the great and the good of the industry come together at our Conference to discuss many of these issues and projects and celebrate their successes at our awards evening."

The awards had been expanded this year to include more categories, including: Corporate Social Responsibility, Marketing Campaign of the Year, Apprentice of the Year, Leadership Excellence and Supply Chain Initiative of the Year and attracted a large number of high quality entries.

Guests seated at the GF2015 Industry AwardsThe winners on the evening included Encirc360 who scooped three of the eight awards; Corporate Social Responsibility, Supply Chain Initiative of the Year with Tom Cross of Encirc360 also winning Apprentice of the Year. The Innovation Award was won by Stölzle Flaconnage for their CIROC Ignite bottle with ‘Friends of Glass’ picking up the Marketing Campaign of the Year Award. Guardian UK Ltd won the Leadership Excellence Award while Alan Minto of Allied Glass collected the Outstanding Contribution Award with O-I winning ‘Glass Company of the Year’.

There were also special Lifetime Achievement Awards for Peter Fitzgerald and Bernard Holt both of whom recently retired from Encirc360 and Ardagh Glass respectively and both have contributed a huge amount to the glass industry.

Click here to read more about the award categories and deserving winners

Thank you to our sponsors this year: Siemens, Glass Technology Services (GTS), Glass Worldwide, PPG, Newport Industries, Field Design, DPG Plc, The Worshipful Company of Glass Sellers of London and Powerful Allies.

British Glass

The British glass industry is valued at £2.5bn (includes container, flat, processing, technical glass and glass fibre) and employs c 7,000 people directly with many hundreds of thousands of people reliant on the glass industry in the supply chain. The glass industry in the UK produces around four million tonnes of glass a year
The British Glass Manufacturers’ Confederation represents the interests of all sectors of the glass manufacturing industry in the UK. Its main activity is representing the industry at International, national and local Government level on a wide range of topical legislative issues. Through its subsidiary company, Glass Technology Services Ltd, it also conducts independent research into all aspects of glass production and technology.