SAINT-GOBAIN
Rated for year 2017: Vegan friendly
Score: +2
Industry: Construction Materials / Glass industry
Analysis:
Vegan innovative product special glass “4bird” has been designed to prevent birds’ collision (other example from Switzerland competitor ORNILUX, Arnold GLAS).
Note: Birds are killed because of transparency (they see through the glass) / reflection (they see for instance the reflection of a tree and are attracted by it) / light (birds and also insects are attracted by the light especially at night) – the amount of birds killed is huge: some specialist assert that birds’ death due to glass is more important than due to oil spill.
Better environmental performance from 2015 to 2016 (p 112 of 2016 registration document): water consumption -19%, GHG emission +3%, quantity of non-recovered hazardous production waste – 12%. Biodiversity : “The actions taken since 1990 have made it possible to restore 60 hectares, previously dedicated to gypsum mining, in order to create various ecosystems including a forest of 70,000 trees” (p 81 of 2016 registration document).
GHG: Greenhouse Gas
BENEFICIAL ASPECTS: No direct exploitation of animals and innovative bird proctection product and better environmental performance
HARMFUL ASPECTS: pollution risk
Sources:
https://www.saint-gobain-facade-glass.com/products/4bird
Survey on glass as danger for birds (French)
SAINT-GOBAIN 2016 registration document
https://www.saint-gobain.com/en/finance/socially-responsible-investment-sri
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