Building a more sustainable future for Murano Glass. Some of our company’s primary goals are understanding how to reduce our environmental footprint in the long term, and being able to develop a sustainable, circular and more efficient production system for our glass. For this reason we collaborated with the University of Padova by commissioning to Alberto Binda – graduating in Environmental Engineering - a Degree Thesis with the goal of analyzing the current production reality of Murano and comparing it with the Best Available Techniques (BATs), the best practices set by European Community. Alberto's thesis represents the starting point for a PhD that we will finance in the near future, aiming at exploring and identifying a low-impact production approach for our business. Artistic glass manufacturing in Murano still follows some old techniques which - since they have not evolved over time – today have proved to be of little efficiency, as they are highly energy consuming. Moreover, in addition to the impact of constant mining and of transporting raw materials in and out the island, we also have lost some of the circularity features that were part of the production system of the past, such as reusing glass waste and supplying resources locally. Rediscovering and enhancing those practices is vital for us, but it’s equally important to evolve technologies in order to make artisanal glass making as sustainable as possible. We are very happy to have started this collaboration with the University of Padova, and we are looking forward to giving our contribution to environmental research even in the future: nurturing relationships with the academic field is crucial in order to make our business thrive in the right direction. More updates coming soon. Here’s an extract from our conversation with Alberto.