The National Glass Association held a 3-day conference in Long Beach from January 24-26. The event featured presentations and committee discussions regarding a number of pressing issues in the glass industry today. Sustainability and safety were the most prevalent overarching topics on the table, and our team at Giroux Glass was grateful to learn more about the current state of the glass industry at large. Here is an overview of some of the event highlights:
Welcome Reception: Aquarium of the Pacific
The NGA took over the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach for an evening of networking, food, drink, and ocean wildlife. It was a special experience to be granted full access to the world-class aquarium without the usual crowds, and the setting provided a perfect environment to get the conversation flowing between conference attendees.
Technical Standards Review and the International Year of Glass
Led by Urmilla Sowell, this symposium featured presentations by Thom Zaremba, Nick Resetar, and Tom Culp, and covered updates to various building codes as they pertain to safety, energy efficiency, and more.
Mr. Zaremba began the presentation, sharing new glazing requirements prompted by developments in the IWUIC – International Wildland-Urban Interface Code. In California, these requirements mainly pertain to degrees of fire resistance in wildfire-prone zones.
Nick Resetar continued the discussion, overviewing changes to the International Building Code regarding human impact loads on general glazing materials, stress loads for glass handrails and guards, and testing procedures for glass walls.
Finally, Tom Culp discussed goals set forth by the IECC – International Energy Conservation Code, including their aim to enforce net-zero policies by 2030. For the glazing industry, this will involve raising efficiency standards in glass building envelope installations. The Charles Pankow Foundation has identified spandrel, in particular, as a potential target for improved efficiency, and is funding research and analysis to establish performance efficiency standards for the previously overlooked building component.
Installing Committee Meeting
In this NGA Committee meeting, members discussed issues pertaining to various forms of protective glazing – fire-rated glass and intrusion-resistant installations. On the topic of fire-rated glazing, the committee task group discussed potential updates to manuals, citing published glass technical papers for clarification and support.
This discussion was followed by an overview of the new standards in development for intrusion-resistant glazing materials and methods. These primarily involve improved testing procedures, which take into account typical active shooter behavior, common assault weapons, and emergency exits in high occupancy buildings.
Presentation: The Impact of Light on Human Health, and Implications for Glazing
For Tuesday’s lunchtime presentation, the conference was joined virtually by researchers Lisa Heschong and Richard Lang, and in-person by NGA energy consultant Tom Culp. Each expert presented facts and information pertaining to the degree to which light passes through glass, and the impact this has on various aspects of human health.
Ms. Heschong detailed the importance of real outdoor views as they pertain to worker speed and productivity, and better math and reading scores in schools. Small, viewless windows or simulated views have been proven to be ineffective substitutes. More specifically, she detailed that insufficient light exposure can be causally linked to the severe increase in myopia among children over the course of the last century, in direct correlation with increasing adoption rates of classroom designs that limit students’ exposure to light.
Mr. Lang expanded on this discovery, detailing that exposure to short waves of light was integral for the development of a light-sensing protein in the eye known as opsin-5, which is key for regulating eye growth. In current school environments, children are not receiving enough exposure to the lower end of the light spectrum.
Tom Culp then explored the issue from a glazing industry standpoint. Since exposure to shorter light waves supports healthy eye development in school children, should the glazing industry create school-focused products that let in higher degrees of this kind of light? Should the glazing industry shoulder the responsibility of this issue, or should school programs (and floorplans) be designed to allow children to spend more exposed to sunlight?
Presentation: The Need for Recycling to Enhance our Supply Chain
The final presentation we attended shared approaches to building glass recycling from both European and American perspectives. Bertrand Cazes, Secretary General of Glass for Europe, detailed the importance of closed-loop recycling in helping the glazing industry meet the EU’s goal of carbon-neutrality by 2050. As it stands now, only 5% of end-of-life building glass – a completely usable resource – is being recycled back into the building industry. This presents an obvious opportunity for improvement and reduction of carbon emissions.
In the US, on the other hand – as Jeremiah Watson, CEO of Infinite Recycled Technologies states, the issue is the collection of recyclable materials. Most glass is recyclable, but it must be aggregated in a large enough volume to be recycled, which it currently is not. Nearly 70% of post-consumer glass and 75% of flat building glass is incinerated or landfilled each year, all of which is entirely usable. How to solve the issue? Watson points to a multilayered approach that involves industry efforts to recycle glass from both manufacturing and demolition processes, improve collection methods, and create incentives for customers and manufacturers alike to invest in recycling.
We learned so much over the course of the three-day conference. Though we only scratched the surface (no pun intended) of all of the industry issues and initiatives the NGA assesses every day, we’re incredibly grateful to the organization for inviting us into their world. We will continue to keep an eye on the subjects addressed in this conference and look forward to seeing them evolve in the coming months and years. Thank you, NGA, for another excellent program! Until next time.