No Silver Bullet to Net Zero: Saint-Gobain Implements Multiple Paths to Clean Energy Emissions
July 26, 2024
Just as there are three scopes in meeting commercial and industrial energy transition efforts to reach net zero emissions goals, there are also three distinct challenges hitting them from behind and ahead.
The past, present, and future.
Time is a key factor in how companies realign their output to decarbonize operations. It’s not just about 2050 promises but also 2020 actions: changing what they’ve done, moving in the right direction now, and committing to sustained decarbonization efforts for years and decades to come.
Global building materials firm Saint-Gobain is moving positively to reduce greenhouse gas output by embracing energy efficiency, on-site power evolution, and virtual renewable power purchase agreements. So far, good, as the company has cut Scope 1 and 2 (direct and immediate indirect) emissions by 34% below 2017 levels, reaching its 2030 goal six years early, not counting Scope 3 (supply chain) levels.
Does that mean Saint-Gobain has discovered the fountain of environmental youth and can cruise along now? Hardly.
“I’m not sure I see a silver bullet,” said Dennis Wilson, Vice President of ESG (environmental, social, and governance) and Managing Director of Saint-Gobain’s Circular Economy Solutions Business in North America.
“We’ve done a lot on energy efficiency, and a lot of the projects we’ve done have delivered on that. You don’t have to remediate something you’re not using to begin with,” he added. “All projects are focused on reducing usage, which is good for environmental sustainability. No silver bullets, just doing work on our day-to-day business to make us more competitive and more sustainable.”
Saint-Gobain and its building products subsidiary, CertainTeed, have stayed active in reducing factory energy consumption via energy efficiency projects such as new variable motor drives, dryers, heat exchangers, and air compressors, among numerous other equipment and facility upgrades. Work is moving forward on shifting its Montreal plant from gas-fired to full electrification of operations.
The company also signed a 10-year renewable energy virtual power purchase agreement (VPPA) with TotalEnergies, one of three such deals made in recent years. According to Saint-Gobain, the company’s VPPA with TotalEnergies alone is expected to offset some 210,000 metric tons of emissions annually, with about 450,000 MTs from the three combined PPAs.
While PPAs do not mean that the customer receives solar or wind energy directly, what the PPA does do is contribute to a macroeconomic shift from fossil-fueled power generation to carbon-free or low-carbon resources.
“The PPA was the single largest way to reduce Scope 2 emissions at one time,” Wilson pointed out. “That was the biggest bang for the buck.”
Wilson thinks of the C&I energy transition as a big global carbon battery, from which investment in renewable energy power purchases benefits all in the big picture.
“While it’s not used directly at our plants, it goes into the grid where it does have a positive impact overall,” he added. “What we’re doing is creating financial security for these projects to get built. Without the work we’re doing (to invest in renewable energy projects), they simply would not happen.”
Like all major industrial players working hard to decarbonize, Saint-Gobain has seen both past and some unpredictable present challenges emerge. For one thing, business has grown substantially—with more than $6 billion in North American investments and acquisitions alone—in the past few years as the economy revived in the post-pandemic era.
The past leans heavily on all industrial companies, and Saint-Gobain’s sector is no different. The built environment—including old facilities—accounts for nearly 40% of emissions and presents one of the “greatest challenges and opportunities to improve the profile of the building and construction sector,” Wilson noted.
Updating the existing building stock through retrofits and renovation can lighten the carbon footprint through greater energy efficiency, he added.
Today, Scope 3 emissions – that part of the environmental compacts that focuses on what other companies are doing on the supply-chain side – continue to be a formidable current and future challenge.
“With scope 3, like a lot of companies, we are struggling,” Wilson said. “The extraction of raw materials is impactful no matter what industry you are in, and that’s the beginning of the supply chain. We’re trying to share digital tools (with suppliers) to help them understand where they need to focus.”
Saint-Gobain has developed a “vendor innovation program” to help suppliers better understand how they can leverage some of the same decarbonization tools utilized by the company. The purchasing group works with those in the supply chain to help reduce emissions impacts from the bottom up to the end user.
“We look very deeply at all the raw materials that go into our products,” Wilson said. “That data is what we share with suppliers to pinpoint what parts of the operation might be more impactful” on an environmental level.
“The devil really is in the details for raw materials suppliers,” he added. “We’re trying to help them discover where the biggest impact is and how to reduce it.”
