Sustainable offering
Climate change mitigation and the demand for energy-efficient solutions are essential in today’s world, as the resources are limited and increasing emissions are impacting on the surrounding environment. Supporting sustainability and the green transition in the glass industry is an integral part of Glaston’s strategy and business. A significant part of our contribution to climate change mitigation is to provide products and services that promote decarbonization, improve energy efficiency and expand the use of renewable energy sources.
We offer glass processing solutions to tackle these environmental challenges, with energy-efficient insulating glass technologies and tempering lines designed for high production capacity volumes. In addition, our technologies support renewable energy generation, as the product portfolio includes technologies suitable for solar panel manufacturing. We invest in capabilities that promote climate efforts in the glass industry value chain by improving the energy efficiency of glass processing.
Energy-efficient solutions
The most significant environmental impacts in our value chain are generated in the use phase of the machine. The operating lifetime of our machines is long, and their use is highly energy-intense, particularly for the tempering lines. Thus, a significant part of the operating costs and environmental impacts are caused by the energy used by the machine.
Our product development has long focused on improving the energy-efficiency of the machines, to reduce environmental impacts, but also to reduce the operating costs of the customers. As a result of our product development initiatives, the energy consumption of the most significant products has been substantially reduced. For example, in the tempering process of low-emissivity (low-E) glass, energy consumption has been reduced by around 30% over the last decade. Electricity consumption in the manufacturing of glass pre-processing and insulating glass units is lower compared to tempering units, but due to systematic product development, also their energy consumption has been reduced even further.
Our intelligent upgrades are designed to ease manufacturing and increase the quality of the processed glass but also reduce operational energy consumption. Glaston Autopilot and Batch Optimizer are designed to increase loading efficiency by providing a possibility for higher loading capacity and thus saving energy from the process. Energy savings from glass processing reduce energy use globally, as well as help our customers to reduce their energy-related operating costs.
Services and upgrades to extend product lifetime and minimize costs
Glaston focuses on developing and delivering sustainable, upgradeable and energy-efficient products. We offer our customers maintenance and modernization services that can significantly extend the life cycle of our machines. In 2025, our product development accounted for 3.9% of net sales and maintenance and modernization services for 39%.
Modular design of the machines enables cost savings while supporting sustainability in the machine life cycle. Our upgrades are suitable for most globally available glass processing lines. Versatile applications help the customers to extend the lifetime of their machine while maximizing productivity, enhancing efficiency and improving precision and quality of glass processing.
In addition, our upgrades help minimizing costs and waste from glass processing due to improvements in glass quality and precision. In product development, we utilize new technology and the opportunities created by digitalization. With the aid of cloud services and the industrial internet, we help our customers to use their machines as efficiently as possible. A real-time quality measurement system detects deviations in the quality of processed glass immediately, thereby minimizing material waste.
A prime example of how we are reshaping glass tempering through intelligent automation is Glaston Autopilot, which automates glass tempering machines to improve cost efficiency and reduce material waste. Autopilot reduces the need for operator input as it automatically sets all necessary parameters based on the placement of the glass sheet on the line. Due to the intelligent system, failures in glass processing are minimized, which reduces glass waste, saves resources and thus operating costs of the user.
Safe processing of glass
Manual glass handling can cause various safety risks for the operator in charge of loading and unloading glass sheets. We aim to minimize safety risks in glass production by offering upgrades such as the Carbon Fiber Impeller and Automatic Loading. The Carbon Fiber Impeller not only reduces cooling energy usage by 20% but also enhances safety of glass processing. Due to its lightweight, high-strength design, it reduces the stress on the blower and lowers failure risk.
Our Automatic Loading upgrade in turn enhances the social sustainability of our solutions, as the system reduces the need for worker input. The system aims to reduce safety concerns related to employee health and safety but also increases the efficiency and creates operational energy savings.
