Saflex® and Vanceva® receive Silver C2C Certified Material Health Certificate™

To help support its customers in their sustainability journey, Eastman has announced that most of its portfolio of Saflex® and Vanceva® advanced PVB interlayers have received the Cradle to Cradle Certified Material Health Certificate™ at the Silver level from the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute — the global standard for products that are safe, circular and made responsibly.

The products included in the certificate are Saflex Clear, Saflex Crystal Clear, Saflex Acoustic, Saflex Solar, Saflex Structural, and Vanceva Color PVB interlayers for laminated glass.

Cradle to Cradle Certified® is a voluntary product certification that verifies that products are safe, circular and responsibly made. It is recognized and sought by specifiers in the building and construction market to guarantee the sustainability of selected materials. In addition, this certification helps architects get points towards green-building credentials such as LEED, WELL and GreenStar.

Verified by an independent third party, the Cradle to Cradle Certified® Product Standard guides manufacturers through a continual improvement process that looks at a product through five quality categories: material health, material reutilization, renewable energy and carbon management, water stewardship, and social fairness.

To obtain the Cradle to Cradle Certified Material Health Certificate™, products must meet stringent health and environmental protection standards.

As the name suggests, the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute evaluates products throughout their entire value chains to ensure that they are not harmful to people or the environment during their lifetimes.

PVB interlayers in laminated glass can offer a few sustainable advantages for a building and construction industry that continues to adopt more environmentally friendly practices. For example, Saflex interlayers can contribute to comfort and optimize energy efficiency brought by glazing in architectural projects through superior acoustic and solar control performance.  

To further support sustainability claims, Eastman conducted a cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment (LCA) for Saflex interlayers that has been reviewed and certified by an external third party, Quantis. This cradle-to-gate environmental performance enables the company to identify opportunities for further improvement on embodied carbon and other impact indicators. It also serves as a reference for developing a road map toward the company’s zero-carbon aspirations for 2050.

Furthermore, because the LCA has been third-party verified, glass processors can now reflect with more accuracy the Saflex interlayer’s specific environmental impact indicators in their laminated glass environmental product declarations (EPDs) and scope 3 emission targets.

An LCA assessment report for Saflex® Clear PVB interlayer can be downloaded on the Saflex website. 

What’s more, Saflex and Vanceva interlayers are manufactured by Eastman, a company with sustainability at its core. The company is advancing the circular economy through breakthrough molecular recycling technology that diverts hard-to-recycle waste materials from landfills, incinerators or the environment. Compared to fossil-based manufacturing, these technologies produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

“Getting this Cradle to Cradle Certified Material Health Certificate™ is vital to architects, facade engineers and glass specifiers who are under increasing pressure to demonstrate and comply with sustainable industry standards,” says Oliver Osborne, commercial director of AMI architecture with Eastman.

For more information about Cradle to Cradle Certified®, visit www.c2ccertified.org. For more information about Saflex and Vanceva, visit www.saflex.com and www.vanceva.com.