Episode 23: Developing a Circular Economy Plan for Building Materials with Dennis Wilson from CertainTeed/Saint-Gobain
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As Earth’s population grows, building construction and maintenance will continue to increase. Building products present one of our greatest opportunities for circularity. In this episode, Tad and Julianna sit down with Dennis Wilson, VP, ESG & Managing Director, Saint-Gobain Circular Economy Solutions NA, to discuss his priorities in his new role as Managing Director of Circular Economy Solutions, the key focus areas for CertainTeed/Saint-Gobain’s sustainability activities, how they’re reducing their company’s carbon footprint and minimizing the embodied carbon in their products, and the path toward circularity for building materials.
Can you tell us a little bit more in detail about the key focus areas for Saint-Gobain’s sustainability activities?
“I'd say on top of that list is scope one, scope two and scope three. We have set science based targets as a company. We have some pretty ambitious goals, especially for a company that does things like melt, sand and cook rock. We have some pretty high energy businesses that we're involved in. So we have 2030 goals in particular on the CO2 side of things of minus 33% for scope one and scope two. Every single one of our businesses has roadmaps on how to get there from a CO2 perspective and a waste water energy perspective. Then we've got a 2050 net zero goal. So my sustainability team is spending a lot of time helping the businesses figure out exactly how they get there.
We have a big electrification push in our operations. We just announced that we are in the process of electrifying our gypsum plant in Montreal, which will be the first net zero manufacturing plant in North America. So, a lot of work on scope one in particular. Electrifying and moving that to scope two and doing things like virtual power purchase agreements to help us offset that carbon that's related to the purchase electricity that we have. So, a lot of effort going into that. Then the last thing I'd say that's really related to that is we have a hundred percent life cycle assessment goal where measuring what's meaningful in scope one, scope two and scope three, then going after the meaningful things is really important. It's not always obvious for those that do life cycle assessment. It's not always obvious where that impact might be. So doing the measurement is incredibly important for us and that's why we've made this commitment to do a hundred percent LCA.”
Can you tell us more about some of the activities reducing embodied carbon?
“Yeah, I mean obviously the embodied carbon of the materials that we send to market have a lot to do with our operations. So, this is part of the inventory that I mentioned before in the LCA work that we've done. In some of our business, scope three is the biggest challenge we have. Most of the embodied carbon that's in the product is due to the raw materials that we get. So there's active R&D projects looking at those raw materials, how they're used in our processes to minimize that as much as possible. As I'm sure some of your listeners are aware, just simply doing an inventory of scope, three emissions is quite a challenge, right? Getting that information from your suppliers and having some confidence in the data because emission factors are sometimes not always an exact science.
So working on that from an R&D side of things, and making sure that we understand what the carbon is that's being added in that embodied category to anything that we're selling that's coming from raw materials. Then secondly, it's all the work that I mentioned before on the operation side. We know where our big items are and systematically work through to make sure that the bigger piece of the embodied carbon pie for gypsum comes from the operation piece. So anything that we can do to electrify the process and have it running on renewable electrons, we're interested in doing that. Those are the big focuses for us that end up in that embodied carbon number that our product gets measured to where our customers will make decisions as to whether they'll buy our product or not for a project that's considering those metrics.”
many building products are currently disposed of in a landfill. However, we know there are opportunities for circularity. Are there any specific products that our audience should learn more about in terms of the ability to go circular?
“I guess the first thing I'd say about this is if you have a question about a material and I say this in any aspect of sustainability, the needle gets moved by people asking questions, right? So I would say in general, even if you think there isn't a path toward circularity for a particular material, call the manufacturer and ask the question, because I can tell you as someone who's been working on sustainability for a long time at this point it helps when the customer asks the question. So I'd say that about any building products because in particular things like vinyl siding can be recycled and put right back into vinyl siding. There's a process where you save about 70% of the embodied carbon that's associated with that raw material by using recycled PBC, for instance.
Roofing shingles that can be taken off a roof is another great example. There are existing pathways in a lot of places, very regional, but they can go back into hot mix asphalt. Gypsum has a pretty robust market. If you go to a construction and demolition waste company that handles specifically those materials, generally the waste that they're getting from demolition projects is either going to the agricultural industry or it's going to the concrete industry. But we can also grind gypsum up and put it back into our process. So, again with most materials, there's a path toward being put into some circular system or some system that maintains that value. What I think we really are focused on within the circular economy solutions business is making sure that we get them back into our materials. So if it might not seem obvious, it might be a call to the manufacturer to ask about a quarter of materials that end up in landfills is construction demolition waste. So, that's a huge responsibility that I see that we have, but it's also a huge opportunity for us to figure out something around these materials. So, ask the question.”
ABOUT Dennis wilson
Dennis is the Vice President of Environment, Social, Governance (ESG) for Saint-Gobain in North America, the parent company of CertainTeed. Dennis is also the Managing Director of Saint-Gobain Circular Economy Solutions, a new venture focused on circularity in the built environment. Dennis joined CertainTeed/Saint-Gobain in 2007 and has since worked in a variety of operational EHS, product stewardship and sustainability roles. Dennis’ teams manages Saint-Gobain North America’s ESG programs as well as process & product sustainability efforts including waste, water, energy, greenhouse gas reduction, renewable energy and product life cycle assessments.
Dennis holds a BS in Applied Environmental Health & Safety Sciences (Safety Sciences) from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, an MS in Environmental Protection & Safety Management from St. Joseph’s University, an MBA from LaSalle University, and a certificate in Sustainable Engineering from Villanova University. Prior to his time at CertainTeed/Saint-Gobain, Dennis held a variety of operations, quality, and regulatory positions in the pharmaceutical, and paper and plastics industries. Dennis was most recently a member of the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) LEED Materials and Resources Technical Advisory Group (MR TAG) and the Health Product Declaration Collaborative (HPDC) Board of Directors.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dew55
