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Story 01 October 2020
Public

Green O’ Clock with Saint-Gobain: Building green to go green

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Joana Moreira

Green roofs and glass, low-carbon materials, buildings that generate more energy than consume... Saint-Gobain wants to build the houses of the future and is looking for new practices that guide every link in the construction chain. This path to a greener tomorrow cannot be done alone: the French corporate is looking for EIC disruptors able to drive innovation and tackle sustainability challenges, and EIC Greenathon provides the best playground for this. Our clock is counting down the days and hours until our event... Keep an eye on the EIC Community to discover, one by one, the business partners joining our initiative.

 

Applications for the Greenathon are open until 7 October 2020.

Apply here and team up with top European corporates and procurers!

 

During the UN Climate Action Summit held in September 2019, Saint-Gobain committed itself to reach net-zero emissions by no later than 2050. This ambition is part of the strategy that the group has been deploying for several years to limit its environmental impact and contribute to decarbonizing its markets. Saint-Gobain, the global leader on sustainable habitat has already reduced CO2 emissions by 14.5% between 2010 and 2019 (at iso-production), but the efforts won’t stop here. The CEO and Chairman of Saint-Gobain, Pierre-André de Chalendar, has joined the Green Recovery alliance in April 2020, alongside 180 decision-makers, to collectively develop investment plans aligned with climate commitments and designed to boost the economy after the COVID crisis.

 

“It is more essential than ever to prioritize the European Green Deal and to enshrine the goal of carbon neutrality for Europe by 2050. The COVID-19 pandemic is having a profound impact on our societies, creating a violent social, economic and political shock. But it does not eliminate the challenges of climate change. We need to find solutions that are fair and acceptable to everyone”, said Pierre-André de Chalendar, on a Linkedin post, when the alliance was launched. 

 

 

Innovation across the value chain

When the European Innovation Council launched the Greenathon, Saint-Gobain was the first to join this initiative. The multinational company is trying to find complementary expertise to offer new potential sustainable services, and this event will be the starting point. The co-creation between SMEs and corporates, the high quality of the EIC portfolio companies and the focus on short-term solutions are just a few factors highlighted by Saint-Gobain: 

 

“The journey towards this carbon neutrality will determine Saint-Gobain’s investment policy, industrial roadmaps, R&D programs and actions towards its suppliers, across its entire value chain. The two challenges are in line with this: design and offer better refractories solutions to our customers to reduce their carbon footprint and think towards better recyclability of ceramic materials at their end of life”, explained Saint-Gobain. 

 

 

 

Saint-Gobain is concretely looking for innovative solutions in the areas of:

Energy performance of industrial furnaces: 

  • Develop high temperature and heat flux monitoring (>1,000 C) solution including IoT sensors, and data analysis to be combined with Saint-Gobain refractories to monitor and optimize the thermal performance of industrial furnaces such as glass furnaces and calcination kilns in order to reduce energy consumption. 

 

End of life management of ceramic-based industrial furnaces: 

  • Create automated and optimized systems for end of life recovery of ceramic parts from industrial furnaces or toolings. 

 

For more details regarding Saint-Gobain challenges, please visit our event page here (this section is only available for EIC Community members. Please access the member area in the platform to see this information).  Should you have any questions regarding the event, please refer to our helpdesk: https://community-smei.easme-web.eu/contact (please choose “EIC Greenathon” as the subject). 

 

 

DISCLAIMER: This information is provided in the interest of knowledge sharing and should not be interpreted as the official view of the European Commission, or any other organisation.

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