Saint-Gobain Glass has achieved outstanding recognition at the 2025 Glass Focus Awards, taking home two major honours: Sustainable Practice and Design of the Year. Organised by British Glass, the awards celebrate leadership and innovation across the UK glass industry, and this year, Saint-Gobain’s commitment to circularity and low-carbon transformation stood out at the forefront.
The Design of the Year award was presented for the groundbreaking redevelopment of 30 Duke Street, the UK’s first commercial refurbishment project to incorporate Glass Forever, Saint-Gobain’s circular economy model for flat glass recycling.
In this project, glass removed from the building’s original façade will be fully recovered, remanufactured into high-performance, lower-carbon flat glass, and reinstalled as part of a wider £75 million retrofit. The building is set to deliver exceptional energy efficiency and major reductions in both embodied and operational carbon. The initiative sets a new benchmark for sustainable commercial refurbishment and demonstrates how existing structures can be reimagined through responsible design.
Saint-Gobain Glass also earned the Sustainable Practice award for the long-term success of its pioneering Glass Forever programme. Launched in 2001, the initiative has become one of the UK’s most significant circular economy achievements in the building materials sector. Over the past two decades, the programme has: 
- Recovered nearly one million tonnes of flat glass
- Avoided the extraction of 1.2 million tonnes of virgin raw materials
- Prevented approximately 700,000 tonnes of CO₂ emissions
Working in collaboration with partners across glazing, construction and deconstruction, Saint-Gobain continues to close the loop on flat glass waste, turning end-of-life materials into resources for the next generation of low-carbon buildings.
Mike Butterick, Marketing Director at Saint-Gobain Glass, expressed pride in the team’s achievements:
We are absolutely delighted to win two awards that reflect the heart of what we do as a business. Glass Forever is a long-standing commitment to circularity and carbon reduction, and seeing it recognised in both categories is incredibly rewarding. Our work at 30 Duke Street shows what is possible when we rethink how buildings are designed and refurbished.
This year, Saint-Gobain Glass UK was shortlisted across four categories, underscoring its broad industry impact, from sustainability and innovation to health, safety, and responsible manufacturing.
Source: Saint-Gobain with additional information added by Glass Balkan
