Washington Business Fall 2016 | Washington Business | Page 22
what’s working: sustainability
A Clear Path to Energy Efficiency
Cardinal Glass helps communities and employers make better use of glass and
energy resources for a greener, cleaner world.
employer: Cardinal Glass Industries
location: This national company operates Washington manufacturing facilities in Winlock,
Tumwater and Chehalis, plus a site just across the Oregon border in Hood River.
number of employees: About 400 in Washington
product: Cardinal creates glass and energy-efficient window products that enable its customers to surpass stringent energy
codes. Its Washington-made glass products are sold in the Pacific Northwest and as far away as Alberta and Japan. Glass is
created on a bed of molten tin, cut to size, then low emissivity coatings are applied consisting of proprietary micro-thin stacks of
materials like zinc, titanium and silver to insulate and reflect heat — letting in light but keeping heat out in summer and warmth in
during the winter.
innovative environmental stewardship: Making glass is inherently energy-intensive, but Cardinal’s finished
product is so energy-efficient that its carbon footprint from glass production is essentially offset within a year by the customer’s
reduced carbon output from lower energy use. And Cardinal keeps
its energy use as low as possible: When operating at full capacity,
Cardinal’s plant in Winlock has one of the lowest total emissions per
ton of glass shipped of any conventional float glass plant in the world.
Cardinal uses the byproduct from its emissions pollution control
process as a material to make new glass, turning about a thousand
tons of its precipitate into product each year. The company does
the same thing for water, cleaning and reclaiming u