#220 From Hydrogen Glass Melting to Circular Fibers: How SUSTAINA® Is Redefining Circularity in Composites
20.05.2026 16 min Staffel 5 Episode 178
Zusammenfassung & Show Notes
Recorded at JEC World 2026, this episode of Composites 360° on Tour features an in-depth conversation with Chris Skinner, one of the most influential leaders in the global glass and composites industry.
In this interview, we explore how industrial-scale circularity in composites is moving from ambition to reality — through technology, partnerships, and systems thinking.
🔁 Rethinking Circularity: SUSTAINA® and SUSTAINA® Loop
Glass fiber composites are engineered to be durable and robust. But that very strength makes end-of-life solutions complex. Chris Skinner explains why circularity in composites cannot rely on downcycling — and why the real goal must be to recover materials and return them to prime-quality production.
This is the foundation of SUSTAINA®, a structured approach that starts with internal production waste, expands to customer waste, and ultimately tackles end-of-life composites through SUSTAINA® Loop. The objective: reintroduce recovered materials back into the furnace to generate new, high-performance glass fiber.
A key breakthrough discussed in the interview is the use of green hydrogen for glass melting, significantly reducing CO₂ emissions at the source while maintaining industrial performance.
🤝 Partnerships as the Core Enabler
One of the strongest messages from this conversation is clear:
no company can achieve composites circularity alone.
Advanced recycling processes such as solvolysis and pyrolysis require specialist expertise and infrastructure. Chris explains why partnerships are essential and highlights real-world collaboration with Gjenkraft, a leading composites recycler focused on end-of-life materials.
In this ecosystem approach, partners handle waste processing and fiber recovery, while materials are requalified and reprocessed into prime fiberglass. Circularity, as Chris puts it, only works if the industry operates as a village.
🌍 From Company Strategy to European Ecosystem
What makes this interview especially timely is how it aligns with broader European initiatives such as the European Circular Composites Alliance (ECCA). Launched by EuCIA in partnership with JEC Group, ECCA aims to scale exactly the kind of industrial solutions discussed here — by connecting value-chain players, setting targets, and embedding circularity into future regulation and design standards.
🧭 Identity, Heritage, and the Future
As the industry evolves, so does identity. Chris shares why the business is positioning itself as The Original Composites Company™, reconnecting innovation, heritage, and credibility — with a refreshed visual language where, yes, black simply looks cool.
🎥 Featuring
• Chris Skinner
• Nadège (industrial hydrogen & SUSTAINA® implementation)
• Étienne Roux
📍 Location: JEC World 2026
📌 Series: Composites 360° on Tour
If you care about circularity that actually works, this conversation is for you.
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In this interview, we explore how industrial-scale circularity in composites is moving from ambition to reality — through technology, partnerships, and systems thinking.
🔁 Rethinking Circularity: SUSTAINA® and SUSTAINA® Loop
Glass fiber composites are engineered to be durable and robust. But that very strength makes end-of-life solutions complex. Chris Skinner explains why circularity in composites cannot rely on downcycling — and why the real goal must be to recover materials and return them to prime-quality production.
This is the foundation of SUSTAINA®, a structured approach that starts with internal production waste, expands to customer waste, and ultimately tackles end-of-life composites through SUSTAINA® Loop. The objective: reintroduce recovered materials back into the furnace to generate new, high-performance glass fiber.
A key breakthrough discussed in the interview is the use of green hydrogen for glass melting, significantly reducing CO₂ emissions at the source while maintaining industrial performance.
🤝 Partnerships as the Core Enabler
One of the strongest messages from this conversation is clear:
no company can achieve composites circularity alone.
Advanced recycling processes such as solvolysis and pyrolysis require specialist expertise and infrastructure. Chris explains why partnerships are essential and highlights real-world collaboration with Gjenkraft, a leading composites recycler focused on end-of-life materials.
In this ecosystem approach, partners handle waste processing and fiber recovery, while materials are requalified and reprocessed into prime fiberglass. Circularity, as Chris puts it, only works if the industry operates as a village.
🌍 From Company Strategy to European Ecosystem
What makes this interview especially timely is how it aligns with broader European initiatives such as the European Circular Composites Alliance (ECCA). Launched by EuCIA in partnership with JEC Group, ECCA aims to scale exactly the kind of industrial solutions discussed here — by connecting value-chain players, setting targets, and embedding circularity into future regulation and design standards.
🧭 Identity, Heritage, and the Future
As the industry evolves, so does identity. Chris shares why the business is positioning itself as The Original Composites Company™, reconnecting innovation, heritage, and credibility — with a refreshed visual language where, yes, black simply looks cool.
🎥 Featuring
• Chris Skinner
• Nadège (industrial hydrogen & SUSTAINA® implementation)
• Étienne Roux
📍 Location: JEC World 2026
📌 Series: Composites 360° on Tour
If you care about circularity that actually works, this conversation is for you.
🌐🔗Visit Our Website:
▶Website 1: https://www.dersocialceo.com
▶Website 2: https://www.compositeslounge.com
▶Website 3: https://www.imbeo.de
▶Website 4: https://www.contentcreatorclub.de
🌐🔗Follow Us: LinkedIn
▶
/ imbeo ▶
/ content-creator-club ▶
/ compositeslounge ▶
/ der-social-ceo #️⃣🔥Hashtag:
#Composites360OnTour #JECWorld #IlkayÖzkisaoglu #JECWorld #CompositeIndustry
Transkript
So wonderful good morning dear.
LinkedIn Community
Composites Lounge members.
JEC WORLD day
two exhibitors and visitors
I am here together
with the inventor of fiberglass
and the disrupter
of the circularity
in our industry.
Welcome, Chris, to our show.
Nice to see you, man.
It's always a pleasure, Chris.
We have met already last year
and “techtaint” our community.
Last year the topic was
you are in a transitioning
from one company to the next one.
What is the update right now?
Because our community
is keen on learning
from the first hand what's going on
right now.
I mean, it's it's
been a it's been a long journey.
It's been it's
been an exciting journey,
you know,
and I think we're going through
a process of establishing
and building
the future of our company.
I mean, the glass reinforcements
business is
is a world class business.
It is a world leading business.
It's a global business.
And really this process
of standing it up
and starting this process
of building a new identity
for this business is is underway.
And really,
we're getting to the point now
where regulatory approval
has been granted
and we're kind of
moving to the last weeks
before this thing closes.
And once it closes,
then I can formally tell you what
the name of new company
is going to be.
But you've probably noticed
from a lot of the stuff
you have a new look,
you have a new feel,
and you have a really kind
of a focus of developing a brand,
which is all about innovation.
It's about circularity,
and it's about partnership.
So what do you think about my message
today? I think.
I think I need to get a jacket
just like yours, because it's
part of the future of our business.
I will open a shop
and then you can order it,
or I get you
one free in exchange of the book.
All right, how about that?
Yeah.
That'll be a good one.
Wonderful.
We will talk about the book
in a separate one,
because they have compiled
a composites history book.
Very, very exciting.
Please get your copy on that.
So one of our heart
topics is of course, sustainability.
So let's talk about
sustainability
in the terms of SUSTAINA®.
Now as far as I understood
SUSTAINA® you have several layers.
Let's talk about the last layer.
The last layer means you are looking
now also for partnerships.
And we will touch
on the partnership requirements.
Just in a minute.
Tell us
where do you stand with SUSTAINA®.
I think if you
if you have to take a step back.
Right.
We work in an incredible industry,
have tremendous technology.
We deliver stuff that's durable
and robust.
It lasts forever.
Fundamentally,
that's one of the issues.
It lasts forever.
It's designed not to fall apart.
It really the point of
how do you actually
turn it back into a product
at the end of the life is super
complicated.
And, you know, we've spent many years
wondering how we do this, you know,
and I think we started with a premise
in the glass reinforcements business,
which was we sell modulus,
we sell performance, we sell modulus.
And really the point of chopping it
into short material
and kind of upcycling, it
kind of get gets away from that.
So really what we said is
we have to create the technology
to enable us to put material
back in the furnace and generate
essentially prime product again.
And that's the basis of SUSTAINA®,
right?
And I think you look at it and go,
the first thing you do
is you focus on cleaning your house
because every production
process has waste.
You have to be able to deal
with that.
And then you look and look at it
and say, in the industry
and we're working,
we have people that convert
and we can take their waste
and we can convert that back to
prime product.
And then really,
the holy Grail
is end of life.
And really what we're focusing now is
how do we actually build
the partnerships to enable us to take
end of life waste,
to process it,
to give us the materials that we can
then process to generate fiber again.
And that's what SUSTAINA® Loop is.
So, Chris,
we have a video
that is compiled by Nadège
And tell us about the video
that is upcoming right now.
What will be the
the relation to the SUSTAINA®?
Yeah.
And the video I mean,
is awesome, right?
I mean, she's awesome
when you look at this video.
But really
there's a couple of key points
in this process, right?
I mean, the first point is
we're doing something pretty unique,
which is we're actually melting
the glass using hydrogen.
Right.
So essentially what does that mean?
It means you don't use natural gas
or green hydrogen.
The embodied carbon
is basically zero.
So that's one thing.
Okay. Take that off.
That was a big move.
But then what you also see
is you've seen Nadège talking
about the process of taking
recovered fibers,
processing them
and putting them back in the furnace.
And this is the basis of SUSTAINA®.
Wonderful sounds.
Totally logic.
Now let's have a look at that video.
And after the video we will continue
with the partnerships with Corning.
In 2025
we began a new chapter.
We're starting changing
how fiberglass is made with
low carbon emissions
and circularity
with real industrial solutions.
Today, this vision
is becoming reality
here in L’Ardoise.
A year ago,
we ran a week
long trial
that showed us
that reducing
our industry
CO2 emissions is possible.
Today, green hydrogen is produced
right here
on site to fuel
a multi-month industrial trial.
This test is designed
to demonstrate
the robustness,
scalability
and performance
at a real manufacturing
scale and.
In the first time,
we are running hydrogen continuously
at a new still scale
in real manufacturing conditions.
Making the hydrogen here on site
helps us understand
long term reliability, cost
and what this technology could mean
for a future with low
CO2 glass melting.
Last year,
we also introduced a new way
to recycle glass
fiber waste back into our fans.
This year
this process is expanding now.
SUSTAINA® Loop.
Our high performing
circular ADVANTEX®
glass is produced
at scale
with different source of waste.
Either waste coming
from our customer,
either waste coming
from our production.
What we are doing here
shows that
circularity, decarbonization
and industrial performance
can move forward together.
Let's make circularity
possible.
Let's make more possible.
So now back from
the nice video with Nadège
really powerful lady.
It's a wonderful footage
that you have created there.
Now, Chris, you said you're looking
looking for partnerships.
My question here is,
so why do you need partners?
What kind of partners would you need?
And why should people care
about partnering up with you?
I mean,
it's
an interesting question, right?
I think if you went back
20 years,
companies thought they could do
it themselves. Right.
And really what we do is
we work in a world now,
which is super complicated,
super technical, and in many cases
you don't have the capability
and skills to do it.
And really,
when we talk about partnerships
in recycling,
we're talking about people
that have got expertise in
solvolysis,
pyrolysis.
You know, and it's it's
complicated stuff and it's stuff
that we don't do.
So really we say, look,
we want to find people
that we want to partner
with because, okay,
we work with great companies
like composites recycling
like Gjenkraft.
These people are world class.
In this difficult step
of taking end of life material
and reprocessing it.
So for us, partnership makes sense
because we can reprocess the fiber,
they can process the waste,
they can actually find sources
for the pyrolysis oil
or uses for the pyrolysis oil.
So really it's building an ecosystem
that's going to
actually make this work.
I mean, the composites
industry is a village.
We have to operate as a village
to make this work, because no one's
big enough to actually deal with this
cross-border cross
region, cross everything.
So for us, partnership is key,
you know, and I think what we look
for as we look for
technical competence,
we look for openness.
We look for people that are prepared
to kind of push the boundaries
and take risks.
And that's what we try to do as well.
So you mentioned
some of these partnerships.
Yesterday
I went to the Circular Village
to interview Estelle,
also from EUCIA,
and then we spontaneously decided
actually to interview Gjenkraft.
Marcin Rusin,
shout out to you at this point.
Can you give us an illustrate
as an example?
How does partnership work
so that our community understands
how this is actually implemented?
Yeah, I mean, if you take Gjenkraft,
Gjenkraft has a really
a pretty clear business model.
They have a clear focus of the
of the let's call it
the end of life waste that they're
focused on recovering.
You know, really for us
what we do is we
we we partner with Gjenkraft.
They provide fibers to us
which have been pyrolysis.
Pyrolysis.
You know, we have very clear
guidance and, and operations
in terms of how we think
about the quality of those fibers.
We worked to optimize this.
And then basically we'll reprocess
the fiber into essentially
prime fiberglass.
Wonderful. Nice.
I think
we've covered a lot of grounds.
I have a final question to you,
Chris.
I don't get it.
We have green and black.
Now black.
I always associated with carbon,
but you're not a carbon company.
So where does this black come?
It's very interesting.
Right?
So we call it original green, right.
So you know,
we're going to move to an environment
where we talk about ourselves
as The Original Composites Company™ .
Back to what you said
about the inventor of fiberglass.
We're going to talk about
as The Original Composites Company™ .
So we have original green.
Black just looks cool.
Looks great. Right?
It just. Looks cool.
Black is an elegant case.
Exactly.
It looks cool.
So that's why we choose black.
Wonderful.
Thank you so much, Chris,
for all these insights.
Always a pleasure talking to you.
Every pleasure to.
Many, many times.
It's a pleasure.
Thank you.
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