As part of our Finalist Interview series ahead of the Sustainability Awards, we spoke to Ardagh Glass Packaging about its NextGen Furnace, designed to reduce the carbon footprint of glass packaging and nominated in the Commercialized Climate category.
You’re a finalist in the Sustainability Awards 2024. Congratulations! To start off, could you summarise your entry, in less than 50 words?
Ardagh Glass Packaging (AGP)’s NextGen Furnace uses ground-breaking hybrid technology to significantly reduce the carbon footprint of glass packaging. By replacing the majority of fossil fuel energy with renewable electricity, the NextGen Furnace will deliver a step change in making the glass packaging industry cleaner and significantly more sustainable.
Why do you think the judges were impressed with your entry? Tell us about what is innovative about your project and/or about its impact on packaging sustainability.
The glass packaging industry has sought to decarbonize the manufacturing process for many years. AGP has taken a significant step forward by investing in and building the NextGen Furnace, with commercial production running since October 2023.
The innovative design of the NextGen Furnace allows AGP to gradually ramp up the level of electrical heating via electrodes, allowing us to validate and learn from the technology at every stage. So far in 2024, the Furnace has reached 60% electrical heating, delivering a consistent 64% reduction in carbon emissions (based on LCA calculation, January to June 2024).
It is producing amber glass – the most chemically-challenging colour to produce, using up to 70% recycled glass cullet, on a commercial scale of up to 350 tonnes per day – all of which breaks through the existing limits of electric melting technology.
It will enable AGP to deliver low carbon glass packaging, helping our customers to reduce their carbon footprint and meet their sustainability targets.
By developing and demonstrating NextGen Furnace technology, AGP has invested in efforts aimed at supporting the sustainable future of the glass packaging industry.
Finally, can you tell us about the ongoing development of your project, e.g. how your innovation/initiative has been received by the industry, or what the next steps are in commercialization/product development?
The NextGen team at AGP in Obernkirchen, Germany has been welcoming customers, members of the glass community, German federal ministers and the media to tour the new furnace since its launch in October 2023. Visitors have been impressed by the furnace design and the reduction in carbon emissions achieved so far in 2024.
The aim of the NextGen Furnace is to prove and validate that the glass packaging industry has the potential to decarbonize at scale. AGP and the glass packaging industry are now actively lobbying policymakers and politicians for the enabling conditions, in terms of infrastructure and cost competitiveness, to make this technology viable for industry-wide roll out.
The second step in developing the NextGen Furnace will be to replace the remaining natural gas with green hydrogen in the furnace, to further reduce carbon emissions.
The winners of the Sustainability Awards 2024 will be announced at the Sustainable Packaging Summit, taking place in Amsterdam on 12-13 November. The Summit mobilizes leaders of the FMCG value chain, policymakers, NGOs, recyclers and investors to collaborate, remove barriers and identify opportunities on the road to sustainable transformation.
To learn more or register, visit: https://www.packagingsummit.earth/2024
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