Mar. 24, 2022 - As part of several recent facilities updates to improve sustainability, Saint-Gobain through its building products subsidiary CertainTeed Canada is installing heat recovery technology at its gypsum wallboard plant in Vancouver, which the company says will improve the facility’s energy efficiency and reduce its carbon emissions by 10%.
The company is investing nearly $3.19 million on a heat exchanger on its industrial dryer, which helps solidify wallboard and remove moisture from the product during production. The heat exchanger will capture and recycle warm air emitted from the dryer, allowing the facility to maintain the dryer’s temperature while consuming less energy and reducing carbon emissions.
As part of the project, CertainTeed is receiving a $1.1 million investment from the CleanBC Industry Fund program, which provides government funding for cleaner technologies that reduce emissions in industry in British Columbia. In 2021 the program invested nearly $56 million in 25 emissions reductions projects, with industry partners providing an additional $77.45 million.
The program is expected to help reduce emissions in British Columbia by 2.5 million metric tons by 2030.
Gypsum wallboard is made from a gypsum slurry that is poured and dries between two sheets of paper. The Vancouver plant opened in 1975 and is the only gypsum wallboard manufacturing plant in British Columbia.
The improvements at the Vancouver facility are among a number of upgrades Saint-Gobain has been making to its operations across North America.
Earlier in March, the company said its virtual power purchase agreement (PPA) with Blooming Grove Wind Farm in Illinois received renewable energy certificates that helped it reduce nearly 33% of its carbon emissions from electricity usage at its facilities in 2021. The vPPA was made in 2020, and at the time was the largest in Saint-Gobain’s history.
Saint-Gobain also invested $32 million to upgrade equipment at its insulation plant in Chowchilla, California, earlier this year. The company says that effort, which is part of a $400 million building efficiency improvement plan in the US, will reduce the facility’s carbon footprint by more than 4,000 metric tons a year.
The company also installed a $4.3 million water recycling system in its Kansas City, Kansas, insulation plant, which it says will reduce the facility’s water consumption by 227 million gallons per year.
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