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One ambition: to improve the well-being of all Creating great living places

Promoting sustainable construction with the a) Green Building Councils Market transformation means changing the whole of the construction market value chain. Many stakeholders share this desire to promote more sustainable buildings. Saint-Gobain is forming partnerships with them (see Chapter 1, Commitments). The Green Building Councils (GBC) are a vital partner in this regard. The GBCs form a global network of national associations of construction market professionals and players. The GBC network offers a fast path for deployment of sustainable construction technologies and dissemination of good practices, particularly via education for market players. They can create a collective momentum involving the various stakeholders (investors, builders, manufacturers, architects, etc.). The geographical approach of the GBCs means that every one of Saint-Gobain’s national, regional and international units can make an active contribution to their work. The Group is a member of 42 local GBCs worldwide, a partner of the European network of GBCs (ERN), and chairs the Corporate Advisory Board of the World Green Building Council (WGBC). In 2017, Saint-Gobain provided active support for a number of WGBC campaigns, including: Better Places for People, which promotes quantification „ and understanding of the positive impacts of sustainable buildings on health and well-being; BuildUpon, a project to support strategies for renovating „ Europe’s existing building stock. Throughout the world, an ambitious political framework can remove technical as well as financial obstacles to the move to an efficient, comfortable and low-energy built environment. The first priority is to significantly reduce the energy consumption of existing buildings. There are many technical solutions, providing not just environmental benefits but also a great improvement in comfort. The second priority is to ensure minimal energy consumption for all new buildings. Buildings designed with efficiency in mind right from the start are competitive buildings. With this in mind, Saint-Gobain promotes in-depth energy renovation, in stages, and implementation of a renovation process based on a “renovation passport”, identifying the tasks to be completed and scheduling them over time, and optimizing them by incorporating energy efficiency into the renovation work (for example, during alterations or renovations of roofs or façades), while promoting the benefits Promoting the energy efficiency of sustainable b) buildings

of energy renovation (impacts on comfort, savings, etc.). The Group also strives to train professionals so that energy innovation is better integrated into the various works that take place on a building in the course of its lifetime. Lastly, in its R&D centers in India, Brazil and the Middle East, Saint-Gobain is developing energy efficiency solutions for hot countries. Furthermore, there is a need to reduce the carbon content and more generally, the environmental impact of the materials and solutions used in construction. This involves increasing the recycled content of materials via the circular economy and making materials lighter without detracting from their performance, as is the case with glass and plasterboard. The roll-out of life cycle analyses for construction materials will help to make the respective benefits of the different solutions more objective. In this regard, at European level, Saint-Gobain has been a member of the LEVEL(S) steering committee for two years. The committee is an instrument developed by the European Commission in conjunction with the industry and the public sector and aims to establish a “common language” for sustainable construction, in order to take it beyond energy efficiency. The European Commission launched the pilot phase of LEVEL(S) in 2017; it will continue until 2019. Saint-Gobain will test out this new tool on some of its projects in 2018. Solutions for individual comfort and the future c) of all Sustainable construction is an inevitable solution to the major challenges facing our planet, particularly with regard to population, since growing urban development requires appropriate responses in terms of buildings and infrastructure while preserving resources. However, all the efforts to promote sustainable construction can only be effective in the long term if they reflect users’ needs and expectations. The immediate benefits and the satisfaction provided by sustainable solutions are what make them acceptable to end customers. This is the reason that Saint-Gobain factors in the fulfillment of individual user expectations as a consideration in its strategy. The choice and use of the products place users and citizens at the center of the city of tomorrow. Market demand only increases if the materials that bring living spaces to life provide comfort and performance. Going beyond political, environmental and fiscal incentives, the perception of individual comfort is what is needed to convince users. This is how the individual comfort of each of us dovetails with the future of all.

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