Consumers are increasingly prioritizing products with lower carbon footprints, reduced water consumption, and increased recycled content, relying on EPDs as the gold standard to verify these attributes. Guardian Glass has embraced EPDs to reassure consumers that their preferences are understood.
The company’s commitment to EPDs is particularly critical given the energy-intensive nature of the float glass sector.
"By employing EPDs, Guardian Glass gains insights into 'hot spots' where inputs or outputs have the largest contribution to our cradle-to-gate embodied carbon value,” explains Darlene Aldred, residential segment marketing director at Guardian Glass. “If there are discrepancies from one plant to another, we have the opportunity to understand them and evaluate what can be done to improve processes across plants.”
Guardian Glass has enhanced its internal expertise in life cycle assessments (LCA) through the EPD documentation process. This has enabled the company to utilize more-detailed information for upstream raw materials and integrate additional renewable energy sources into its operations. “We are constantly examining opportunities to further reduce the indirect and direct carbon emissions associated with the float glass production process, from selecting lower-carbon raw materials and increasing the use of glass cullet (broken or scrap glass),” Aldred says.
For example, recognizing that the energy efficiency of furnaces degrades over time, Guardian Glass implemented a cold tank repair (CTR) on half of its North American furnaces to improve their energy efficiency. With these manufacturing improvements, Guardian Glass was able to decrease the carbon footprint of its unprocessed flat glass by 24 percent from 2018 to 2024. This ensures that the product meets the U.S. General Services Administration’s (GSA) top 20 percent global warming potential (GWP) limits.
Guardian Glass further demonstrates its commitment to environmental stewardship and EPDs by providing life cycle data from seven of its North American float glass plants to help formulate the industry-wide EPD for float glass. This is in addition to the four product-specific EPDs covering its unprocessed flat glass and processed sputter-coated, wet-coated, and heat-treated glass.
For customers having trouble navigating these EPDs and deciding which glass to use for their green building projects, Guardian Glass has Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Associates available to share their expertise.