Sustainability Roadmap
Saint-Gobain Group to reach carbon neutrality by 2050
In 2019, Saint-Gobain announced its commitment to carbon neutrality by 2050. Though our history of reducing our environmental impact extends far beyond 2019, we now have clear objectives and a defined methodology to reach our goals.
Our Pillars of Action
At Saint-Gobain Abrasive Grains, our vision is to "be the enabling abrasive materials performance partner to transform the industrial world to be sustainable." Together with the other businesses of Saint-Gobain, we are committed to deliver results that support carbon neutrality by 2050.
We are taking steps to lower our impact and understand the environmental footprint of our products. The pillars of action below provide key guidelines for our Sustainability Roadmap.
Improving our Environmental Footprint
We have a long history of providing premium performance with our offering of abrasive grains. We are constantly seeking innovations to improve the productivity of our abrasives, which in turn improves sustainability for our customers:
- Lower the energy needed to cut, grind or polish parts, directly impacting CO2 emissions
- Minimize waste by extending the usable life of our grains
- Reduce time needed to process parts for more efficient production
We will keep sustainability as an integral part of new product development to minimize the environmental footprint of both manufacture and usage of our grains. We are conducting Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) on our products, consistent with ISO 14040 and 14044 and eco-innovation, which will help us understand where to focus our efforts to make the biggest impact.
Supply Chain & Operations
Saint-Gobain has developed our sustainability objectives according to the GHG protocol, splitting our emission targets into Scope 1 (direct emissions from our plants), Scope 2 (electricity-related emissions), and Scope 3 (value chain emissions). Saint-Gobain Abrasive Grains has committed to the following objectives by 2030 to reduce the impact of our supply chain & operations:
Enabling a Circular Economy Solution for Abrasives
Reducing the use of primary raw materials goes a long way to limit our impact on the earth. Finding circular solutions for our products and materials will help our businesses meet our environmental goals, while also providing our customers an opportunity to reduce their non-recovered waste. While we have been identifying circularity pathways for many years within our internal operations, we are looking forward to partnering with our customers to identify new opportunities, business models and services.
In North America, we successfully reclaimed over 2,600 tons of material in 2021. If you are interested in reducing your landfill of ceramic & abrasive materials, contact us today!
Delivering Product Transparency
As more companies focus on reducing their carbon footprint, it is increasingly important to understand the impact each step of the supply chain has on sustainability. We are focused on providing transparent information on where and how our products are manufactured to help achieve this understanding.
