Banner corporate responsibility

Our Corporate Responsibility

At Saint-Gobain, we are committed to ensure that our activities, our employees, and our partners are jointly involved in building a more sustainable and inclusive world.

As the worldwide historical leader in fiberglass solutions for technical textiles, Vetrotex is committed to sustainable development and responsible manufacturing, purchasing and supply. We have established ambitious targets to reduce our environmental footprint and enhance our positive impact on society. 

Discover our 4 areas of commitment:

Our Sustainable Offer

We aim to enrich and expand our product offering with solutions that meet both the performance requirements of our customers and the demands of sustainable development, in order to support the transformation of the markets we serve. 

To achieve this, we are committed to:  

  • Build a strong culture around sustainability so that our sales, marketing and R&D teams can anticipate market trends and generate sustainable projects for and with our customers. 
  • Together with performance and cost, sustainability is integrated as another major criterion in the product book of specifications when seeking to develop the best solution for our customers. Leverage sustainability as a key driver for innovation.  
  • Achieve 100% of Life Cycle Assessment for all our product ranges within 2030, to anticipate the markets needs for transparent communication and to  use robust data to drive eco-innovation and marketing strategies. 
  • To ensure transparency of our solutions, we are committed to providing EPDs certified by a third-party for our major product families by 2030.

As an example of our achievements:

  • LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) is a scientific process to measure the environmental impact of a product, system, or service throughout its entire life cycle. At Vetrotex , we ensure the Cradle to gate analysise. 
  • Saint-Gobain Vetrotex aims to have 100% LCA assessment for its entire product range by 2030. 
  • In 2023, we covered 90% of our business and built a team with LCA expertise.  and we performed LCA assessment of fiberglass cakes and manufacturing processes in factories in the Czech Republic and Mexico. 
  • Our ambition for 2023/2024 is to transcribe LCA results into EPDs, providing robust data to customers to improve their own environmental performance. 

Our Sustainable People

Our people are the heart of our business. We seek to raise awareness about how each of us can play an important role in acting for a sustainable future both professionally and personally.   

  • Provide trainings to help employees understand sustainability challenges and empower them to make changes (climate Fresque) 
  • Ensure the health and safety of employees, temporary workers subcontractors, but also our external stakeholders’ customers and suppliers at Vetrotex sites.  
  • As an example, In 2019, our Tlaxcala plant decided to implement the EHS (Environment, Health Safety) Promoters Program that aimed to develop  the EHS Culture in every work shift. Process operators were trained on specific EHS topics so they could guide and promote the EHS Culture to their coworkers.   
  • Every year, we support community projects (cultural, sports, or environmental) that benefit nearby communities around our sites.

Our Sustainable Operations

In line with Saint-Gobain Group’s purpose and commitment to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050, our Vetrotex factories continuously implement local programs to minimize our environmental footprints. 

From 2010 to 2022, we have annually reduced (per unit of production):

As an example of our achievements:

Electrification of furnaces: A WAY TO DECARBONIZATION 

In 2018, Saint-Gobain Vetrotex started with the electrification of their furnace in order to tackle the decarbonization by offering even more energy-efficient and low carbon emission. 

This technology was installed on one of their furnaces at Litomysl plant and similar electrifications will be implemented in all new furnaces rebuilds and will contribute to reduce 30.000 tons/year of CO2 emissions for all Vetrotex furnaces.

Our Sustainable Supply Chain

Taking action across our entire supply chain is key in our strategy. In collaboration with our suppliers, we are currently working on the following 3 levers of actions: 

  • Developing our responsible purchasing program. 
  • Reducing our carbon footprint related to purchased raw materials and transportation. 
  • Transitioning to more eco-friendly packaging solutions with the goal of having 100% recyclable packaging including at least 30% of recycled or bio sourced content by 2030. 

As an example of our achievements:

BIG BAGS PROJECT

Started in 2023, this project aims to switch from small to big starch bags in Mexico, and is going to be tested in other plants.

Instead of using 25 little bags for transportation, 1 big bag will be enough to replace it.

This will optimize transport costs by carrying 22 tons instead of 18 tons, which will also improve CO2 emissions.