“The Furnace for the Future is the most significant step towards achieving climate-neutral glass packaging throughout Europe.”  – Adeline Farrelly, FEVE Secretary General

The ‘Furnace for the Future’ (F4F) represents a strategic milestone in securing the future of the European glass industry in a circular and climate-neutral European economy. The F4F breakthrough technology will allow us to switch to renewable electricity and dramatically reduce CO2 emissions. This project is highly innovative but achievable. Today, electric melting already works but it is limited to small-scale furnaces for flint (clear) glass with limited recycled glass content. With the F4F we want to demonstrate that it can work for much bigger furnaces using very high amounts of recycled glass and for all glass colours.

The F4F project will be the first of its kind in the world because it will:

Benefit the whole European container glass sector 

For the first time, our industry will collectively fund and develop a technological innovation and prove its commercial viability. The European and Global container glass manufacturer Ardagh Group has volunteered to lead a coalition of 19 independent companies representing over 90% of the total glass container production in Europe (more than 80 billion containers yearly). Ardagh Group will build the F4F and run it in Obernkirchen, Lower Saxony, Germany. The other glass companies will co-finance the project, and in return, will receive all the necessary information (plant visits, training of operators, operating parameters) to run similar plants. This will ensure an efficient dissemination of the know-how and results to support scalability and roll-out at sector level. See the letter of endorsement of the Industry Coalition of FEVE Founding Members.