In my recent conversation with Adrian Curry, Chair of Glass Futures and a long-time leader in the glass industry, we explored exactly that. At first glance, this might seem like a conversation about bottles and manufacturing. But very quickly, it became clear: this is really a story about system change at scale.
Because transforming glass isn’t just about glass.
It’s about how entire industries evolve — or resist evolving — in a world that can no longer afford to stay the same.
Adrian’s story doesn’t begin in a boardroom or a strategy session.
It begins in a garage in County Fermanagh, working on trucks as part of a growing local business. Hands-on, practical, grounded work. The kind that teaches you how things actually function—not just how they look on paper.
From there, things moved quickly. A new factory. A new opportunity. And then a question that would shape the next decades of his career:
What if we got into glass?
There was no fully formed plan. No perfectly mapped strategy. Just resources, curiosity, and a willingness to take a risk.
That moment became the beginning of something much larger—a journey into manufacturing, innovation, and eventually, transformation at industrial scale.
What struck me most in Adrian’s story wasn’t just what they built—it was what they were up against. Because when you try to do things differently in a long-established industry, resistance is inevitable. Competitors pushed back. Legal challenges emerged. Progress slowed in ways no one could have predicted. And yet, they kept building. There’s something important in that.
We often talk about disruption as if it’s clean and exciting. But the reality is that disruption is messy. It creates friction. It exposes vulnerabilities—in systems and in people. And sometimes, that friction is the very thing that accelerates change.
At one point in the conversation, Adrian said something that stayed with me: People often look through glass—but rarely at it. And it’s true.
Glass is everywhere. In bottles, windows, screens, cars, infrastructure. Fully integrated into our lives—and largely invisible. But when you stop and really look at it, it tells a different story.
Glass can be recycled endlessly. It doesn’t degrade. It doesn’t leach into food or drink. And with the right innovation, it can be produced with significantly lower carbon impact.
So why isn’t it always the obvious choice? The answer isn’t technology. It’s perception.
We’ve learned to associate heavier packaging with higher quality. We’ve prioritised cost in ways that don’t always account for long-term impact. And we’ve built systems that make some materials easier, faster, and cheaper to use—even when they might not be the best option.
Which raises an uncomfortable but necessary question: Are we choosing what’s best—or what’s easiest?
There’s a moment in almost every conversation about sustainability where things become abstract.
Words like innovation, net zero, circularity start to float around—but it’s not always clear what they actually look like in practice.
This conversation grounded that. Because in industries like glass, change isn’t about launching a new product or updating a system overnight.
It’s about:
- Rebuilding furnaces that cost hundreds of millions
- Rethinking energy sources like hydrogen, biofuels, and electricity
- Testing materials at scale
- And making decisions that will shape the next 10 to 15 years
This is slow, capital-intensive transformation. But it’s also where real impact lives.
At organisations like Future Glass, that transformation is being tested and accelerated—bringing together industry, academia, and policymakers to explore new ways of manufacturing and decarbonising glass.
It’s a reminder that meaningful innovation isn’t always fast. But it is rigorous. And it is necessary.
The System Around the Material
One of the most revealing parts of our conversation wasn’t about production—it was about what happens after.
What happens when a bottle leaves the shelf?
Who collects it?
How is it sorted?
Does it get recycled, reused, or lost entirely?
The answers vary—not just between countries, but between regions. Different policies. Different infrastructures. Different behaviours. And in that fragmentation, progress slows down.
Glass is not just glass. It is part of a system that includes: government policy, retail decisions, consumer habits, infrastructure and logistics. And if that system isn’t aligned, even the best solutions struggle to scale.
For all the talk of technology and infrastructure, we kept coming back to one thing: People. Because change doesn’t happen when something becomes possible, it happens when people are ready to embrace it. And s often that is the hardest part.
We like the idea of change but in practice, it asks of us to rethink habits, make different choices and to step into uncertainty; and that takes time.
Adrian spoke about curiosity, courage, and consistency—not as abstract traits, but as daily practices.
Asking better questions. Challenging assumptions. Making small decisions that, over time, lead to meaningful shifts.
By the end of the episode, it was clear that this wasn’t just a conversation about glass. It was about how we move forward in a world where the answers are complex, the systems are interconnected, and the stakes are high. It was about understanding that:
- Sustainability is not about one perfect material
- Innovation is not just about speed
- And transformation is not something one organisation can do alone
It’s something we build—together. Across industries. Across systems. Across perspectives. And maybe most importantly, across time.
If this conversation resonated with you, I’d love you to share it with someone who’s working to create change—whether in manufacturing, sustainability, or within their own organisation.
Because these conversations don’t just inform.
They ripple. And that’s where change begins.
The biggest barriers to sustainability are not always technological — they’re behavioural.
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