(Credit: Saint-Gobain)Saint-Gobain, through its building products subsidiary CertainTeed Canada Inc., will invest $72 million -- including $32 million in grant money from the government of Quebec via its EcoPerformance program -- to upgrade equipment at its Montreal wallboard manufacturing facility and reduce its carbon emissions by up to 44,000 metric tons/year, creating the first zero-carbon drywall plant in North America.
The equipment upgrades will also reduce the site’s energy usage by 30%, and the plant will transition away from using fossil fuels to being solely powered by renewable electricity from Hydro-Québec. Additionally, the upgrades will increase the Montreal plant’s production capacity by up to 40%.
The project comes as Saint-Gobain continues to roll out its new global Grow and Impact strategy, which includes plans to reduce the company’s energy consumption and emissions. The company has pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
All of the production equipment at the Montreal plant that is currently powered by natural gas will be upgraded to newer equipment powered by renewably-sourced electricity. These upgrades will allow the manufacturing operations at the plant to achieve carbon neutrality. Construction on the project is scheduled to begin in the summer of 2023 and the new equipment will come online in late 2024.
Most recently, Saint-Gobain achieved zero carbon production of flat glass. This was achieved by using 100% recycled glass (cullet) and 100% green energy, produced from biogas and decarbonized electricity. It also announced plans to invest $100 million over the next two to three years to expand its CertainTeed roofing shingle manufacturing facility in Peachtree City, Georgia, and will recycle over 1,000 tons of glass per year for the next five years, diverting the material from landfills and upcycling the components for future use through an agreement with a third-party processor based in Minnesota.
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