• Inventing and Promoting Sustainable Buildings

Inventing and Promoting Sustainable Buildings

The habitat and construction industry, Saint-Gobain’s main market at a global level and in India, is shaped by major sustainable development challenges. The need for healthy, comfortable and energy-efficient residential and commercial buildings remains considerable. To keep up with rapid urbanization in fast-growing markets (such as India) and aging constructions in mature markets, the industry will have to build more, build better and renovate the buildings people live in today. In India, affordability, high humidity, noise and dust pose a different set of challenges. In the face of global warming and dwindling natural resources, new models will be required to preserve the planet. No significant progress will ever be made in improving energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions without massive action in the habitat and construction industry, which alone accounts for some 40% of energy consumption and 38% of greenhouse gas emissions in industrialized nations.

To meet the challenges of sustainable development, Saint-Gobain is imagining the habitat solutions of the future. Buildings hold considerable potential to improve comfort, well-being and quality of life for men and women around the world. It is possible to make progress while reducing the world’s energy dependency and limiting environmental impacts. As places where people live, work and spend time, the main purpose of homes, offices, hospitals, schools, leisure facilities and other buildings is to serve users and to meet their needs. To drive these changes, Saint-Gobain is leveraging a unique innovation model in which local innovations receive corporate support and are shared across the different businesses.

Businesses of  Saint-Gobain Group in India which serve the building and construction industry are working with various stakeholders (Governments, Institutions, Builders/Developers, Architects, Fabricators, Processors, Multi-craftsman etc.) to promote sustainable buildings. In addition, Saint-Gobain Research India Ltd. which houses Saint-Gobain’s seventh global transversal R & D Centre in Chennai, is engaged in work (in collaboration with academic institutions) on affordable housing and on finding innovative, sustainable solutions for hot and humid climates as also for noisy and dusty environments.