Glass or ceramic products are made from natural, mostly domestic raw materials and therefore have great sustainability potential. Glass can also be 100 percent recycled: Today, every bottle consists of an average of 60 percent “old” shards, and for green glass it is even up to 90 percent.

Ceramic products and porcelain are particularly durable. Opportunities for greater sustainability lie in producing glass and ceramics with lower emissions and less dependence on fossil fuels. For example, companies are testing the possibility of operating kilns with electricity or green hydrogen.

Another lever is the use of waste heat from the ovens to further reduce energy consumption and cause fewer emissions. In glass production, in addition to using waste glass, reducing the weight of glass products also results in less energy consumption. The high water consumption in ceramic production offers further sustainability potential, for example by using rainwater and reusing wastewater from the manufacturing process. The industry has a variety of impact levers. In the building sector, for example, windows are a crucial factor for energy efficiency; Solar capability built into the glass makes it possible to generate energy in the window without additional surfaces. When it comes to beverage bottles, the sustainability advantage is less clear: reusable bottles allow for multiple reuse and save production emissions. However, due to their weight, glass bottles use more energy and CO2 during transport. Ceramic manufacturers can also take into account the global sanitation situation: hundreds of millions of people have no access to drinking water or sanitary facilities.

The industry includes flat glass, hollow glass (container glass, crystal and commercial glass), mineral and glass fibers as well as utility and special glass (other glasses and technical glassware). The most important segments in the production of ceramic products include non-metallic, fired material mixtures for the production of consumer goods such as porcelain and ceramic household goods as well as building and sanitary ceramics, refractory ceramic materials and goods, and insulators.