Driving a circular economy of glass: a strategic collaboration between Eckersley O’Callaghan and Saint-Gobain Glass
27 February 2025
Eckersley O’Callaghan and Saint-Gobain Glass unite to drive the market toward low-carbon facades.
In the face of the climate emergency, rising energy costs, and depletion of natural resources, it is crucial that we re-evaluate key construction products and make good practice standard.
Today, Eckersley O’Callaghan and Saint-Gobain Glass announce a strategic collaboration to support a circular economy of architectural glass, with the aim of increasing the volume of post-consumer glass being recycled into new float glass.
Both companies have dedicated teams committed to tackling the challenges relating to the circular economy in construction, particularly within the commercial sector.
Eckersley O’Callaghan has extensive experience in circularity and design for adaptation, preparing reuse and refurbishment audits for renovation projects, and enabling creative reuse of reclaimed materials in new facades. This hands-on experience has resulted in award-winning projects incorporating circular reuse of facade materials, bringing carbon benefits and demonstrating stewardship of scarce resources.
For over two decades, Saint-Gobain Glass UK has been a leader in promoting responsible glass cullet recovery by working closely with glass processors to implement efficient recycling methods. This commitment to a circular economy is exemplified by “Glass Forever,” an innovative end-of-life glass recovery scheme that retrieves post-consumer glass from old windows, preventing it from ending up in landfills. These efforts are driven by our specialized facility in Eggborough, UK, reinforcing our dedication to sustainable glass production.
As a joint initiative we believe our efforts will promote best practice and enable property investors and developers to reduce embodied carbon emissions and realise the full potential of material recovery in their projects, supporting them with our expertise.
We look forward to collaborating to see significant change in our industry.
Eckersley O’Callaghan
Eckersley O’Callaghan is a global team of structural engineers and facade engineers renowned for a commitment to sustainability, technical excellence, innovation and digital design, pushing the boundaries of what is possible.
EOC is committed to tackling the Climate Emergency by promoting sustainable use of materials and implementing and embedding circularity, resilience and low-carbon strategies into building design.
In 2024 EOC co-launched a web platform with the mission of enabling a circular economy of glass by connecting companies offering services in glass recovery and recycling.
Through circular economy diagnostic studies, EOC gives practical advice on reuse strategies and meaningful recycling of waste materials, benefitting from excellent industry and academic connections, and novel research into circularity.
Saint-Gobain Glass
Saint-Gobain Glass designs, manufactures and markets glass solutions for façades, windows and interior design that deliver sustainability, comfort and performance. It serves those who build and those who spend time in buildings while addressing a variety of markets in construction and renovation.
Saint-Gobain Glass develops networks of partners to collect external cullet to be recycled in close-loop in the furnaces. Introducing more cullet in glass has three main environmental virtues: reducing the CO2 emissions, preserving natural resources and reducing energy consumption. The goal is to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, and for Saint-Gobain Glass UK with 50% of all glass manufactured at Eggborough using cullet, by 2030, thanks to the “Glass Forever” Recycling Programme.
In other countries in Europe, Saint-Gobain Glass has other multiple recycling initiatives for flat glass, with a network of 50 partners in France, a partnership with Ragn-Sells in Germany to recycle glass facades in Sweden and Norway, and the CLIMALIT® RECICLA initiative in Spain to collect and reintegrate glass from old windows.
In 2022, Saint-Gobain Glass took a significant step further by introducing ORAÉ®, the first low-carbon glass on the market and plans to continue pushing for more sustainable solutions to offer a complete range for all markets and drive positive change.
