AGC Europe: Sustainability Report 2020 now online

Carbon footprint: 1:11
AGC Glass Europe’s first carbon footprint calculation was performed in 2009 and was repeated every three years. The ratio and – on the basis of the same perimeter – the results have improved ever since.The latest footprint calculation led to a new result of 1:11 (i.e. 3,800,000 tonnes of CO2 emitted vs. 41,000,000 tonnes of CO2 avoided), meaning that for each tonne of CO2 emitted by our activities, nearly 11 tonnes of CO2 are avoided thanks to the use of AGC Europe’s products.

More details on how the company calculates its carbon footprint here.

Production operations: 2019 achievements at a glance

• Energy recovery and electricity production: AGC started to install PV panels and heat recovery installations in 2009. Since then, electricity production has steadily increased to 29,354 MWh of recovered and self-generated energy in 2019.

• Air: On a comparable basis, per tonne of glass sold, Primary Operations has reduced its direct CO2 emissions by 14% since 2002. There has been a reduction of around 67% in the specific dust emissions since 1999.

• Water: From 1998 to 2019, we have managed to reduce the water consumption by 73% on a comparable basis.

• Solid waste: Today, the amount of solid waste produced by the Group is around 252,000 tonnes/year, of which around 97% is further recycled or recovered on site by our suppliers or contractors.

• Transport: 64 percent of all raw materials is transported by ship or train, taking about 51,500 trucks per year off the road. In 2019, about 40,000 tonnes of finished glass products were transported in combined train and truck transport, taking about 2,000 trucks per year off the road.

• Packaging: Today most of the glass packaging is reusable. AGC Glass Europe achieves a very high level of packaging reuse. In Belgium 98% of the packaging is reused.

• Recycling: AGC Glass Europe recycles around 1,000,000 tonnes of cullet per year, saving about 1,150,000 tonnes of raw material and 300,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

Cradle-to-Cradle approach for sustainable products
In 2019, AGC earned a new Cradle to Cradle certification for its fire-resistant glass and renewed its certifications (under version 3 of C2C) for another 2 years for float, magnetron coated glass and patterned glass. Very recently (May 2020), AGC obtained the Silver level for its renewed certification of laminated glass, and is the first glassmaker to be able to offer this level of certification for laminated products.