September 27, 2018 | Paris, FR

Saint-Gobain Steps Up its Commitment to Sustainability

During the World Green Building Week (September 24-30), a flagship event organized by the World Green Building Council, Saint-Gobain unveiled a new web platform, Green Buildings, that guides sustainable construction professionals through their sustainable certification process.

This event is also the opportunity for the Group to present SCORE, a new tool that aims at evaluating construction products in terms of sustainability.

On September 24, Saint-Gobain launched a new platform dedicated to sustainable construction stakeholders: architects, design offices, consultants and contractors. The goal is to assist them with their sustainable certification process, notably when it comes to selecting construction products and solutions. In order to meet worldwide demand, the Green Buildings website showcases labels such as BREEAM, LEED or WELL on its international version, as well as local labels on the country-specific versions, such as in Sweden or Spain. The platform presents label certification criteria in a simple and attractive manner and shows how Saint-Gobain solutions can help meet their requirements. It also provides the documentation needed to certify projects, such as environmental product declarations or acoustic reports, which makes life easier for professionals and helps them gain time.

This tool demonstrates Saint-Gobain’s long-term commitment to sustainable construction, as embodied by the partnership formed with the World Green Building Council and over 35 local Green Building Councils since 2013. It offers the construction professionals a competitive advantage and positions Saint-Gobain as a partner of choice.

In parallel, Saint-Gobain developed a unique methodology to assess the performance of its products in terms of sustainability, through its SCORE tool, that will be progressively rolled out within the Group.
Reduced energy consumption, smaller carbon footprint, recyclable products that are healthy for building occupants, and so on: the market’s expectations have never been so high. With SCORE, Saint-Gobain is aiming to provide a response to the sustainability and transparency issues raised by the Group’s customers and stakeholders throughout the whole value chain.

A robust and innovative tool, SCORE (the first of its kind on the construction market) is used to assess construction products in terms of sustainability, taking into account 21 indicators in five categories (energy and climate, health, materials and circular economy, water and local value creation). For Saint-Gobain, a sustainable product is defined by assessing its performance throughout its entire life cycle on two dimensions: how it contributes to reduced environmental and health impact, and how it delivers increased benefits for customers.

SCORE was tested at two pilot units in 2017 (construction products in Sweden and glazing for façades in Europe). Gradually, it will be rolled out across the Saint-Gobain group to assess construction products. The tool will be used by the R&D and marketing teams and by business unit management to boost eco-innovation and improve global product sustainability performance.

Sustainable construction labels
In the sustainable construction sector, building certification systems are raising the level of standards and practices, allowing the more innovative and sustainable buildings to stand out from the crowd. These evaluation systems indicate that a building has met a certain number of criteria making it sustainable, beyond the levels required by regulations: energy efficiency, materials, comfort, health, respect for the environment and biodiversity, etc. LEED, BREEAM, HQE, DGNB, Greenmark…The labels come from private voluntary initiatives. There are dozens of labels worldwide, each with their own specifications that can differ depending on the type of project (new, renovation, operation, etc.), building (for office use or services, single-family dwelling, etc.), or country.

 

ABOUT SAINT-GOBAIN
Saint-Gobain designs, manufactures and distributes materials and solutions which are key ingredients in the wellbeing of each of us and the future of all. They can be found everywhere in our living places and our daily life: in buildings, transportation, infrastructure and in many industrial applications. They provide comfort, performance and safety while addressing the challenges of sustainable construction, resource efficiency and climate change.

€40.8 billion in sales in 2017
Operates in 67 countries
More than 179,000 employees
www.saint-gobain.com
@saintgobain

 

MEDIA CONTACTS:
Laurence Pernot : +33 (0)1 47 62 30 10
Susanne Trabitzsch: +33 (0)1 47 62 43 25