The Federal Association of the German Glass Industry requested the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy to implement a sustainability study in order to obtain scientific and independent proof that glass is a sustainable material. The central question addressed by the survey was: "Is glass a sustainable packaging?" The initial findings of the Institute's survey were announced by Project Manager Holger Rohn in a presentation recently. At the outset of the project, the Institute faced the challenge of finding a way to measure sustainability and it also had to consider how sustainability measures can be implemented in an entire glass sector, such as the container glass industry. Basically, there are still no standards or regulations on sustainability for the glass industry. In light of this, the Wuppertal Institute decided to design its study on the basis of existing scientific approaches. A system of 21 sustainability indicators was developed which took the entire lifecycle of glass packaging products into account - from raw material recovery, through the production process, retail, consumption, recycling and disposal. The range of indicators included resource and water consumption, production costs, raw material availability and also included social indicators such as accidents at work, equality and training. By using such a wide range of indicators, BV glass has addressed the entire issue of sustainability, rather than merely focusing on ecological aspects. The study has already delivered initial findings. One important finding relates to resource consumption across the entire life cycle of glass. Returnable mineral water packaging products cut a much better picture than disposable packaging products. This is obvious in a comparison of PET and glass returnable packaging products with disposable PET packaging products. Rohn commented: "Potential currently exists to make around 30% savings on the consumption of resources in the entire lifecycle of returnable glass products right up to the consumer. If all the participants in the life cycle - particularly the container glass industry and the fillers - can exploit this potential, glass can become even more sustainable than it already is."
