Company profile: The Glass Company
The Glass Company: from humble beginnings to award winner
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The Glass Company won Design of the Year in Flat Glass in conjunction with Ubiquitous Energy coating at the recent British Glass Focus awards. Jess Mills spoke to owner Sanmukh Bawa* about his upbringing into the world of glass and how sustainability influences the group’s operations.
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ike most children, Sanmukh Bawa (pictured inset with the British Glass award) used to race home from school - but not to play video games or watch TV after a day of learning. Sanmukh was keen to see the production of glass. The Bawa family owned a glass factory, and Sanmukh was regularly enchanted by it. “I used to go straight from school as it was so exciting to see the production magic within the facility. The smell of silicon from insulated glass units still takes me back to that time as a child.” Sanmukh is the fourth generation glass person in his family, after his great-grandfather started the company in 1961. The company was later established in 1983, under the names Safe-
� Ubiquitous Energy Headquarters in Redwood City, California.
Maxx and Innovative Glasses, in New Delhi and Gurgaon, India. At first, the company simply used window glass and timber, before Sanmukh’s grandfather, Mr Charanjit Singh Bawa, brought in aluminium and steel. Sanmukh’s father, Bhupinder Singh Bawa, then introduced curved glass to the company in 1998, making Innovative Glasses one of the first companies in India to bring curved glass to the market. It still remains as one of the biggest producers of curved glass in India today. With this upbringing, it’s unsurprising that Sanmukh’s career has been entirely dedicated to glass. In 2012, he started as a Project Engineer for Eckersley O’Callaghan before becoming the
50 Glass International December/January 2022
Company profile The Glass Company.indd 1
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