“This is a strategic investment,” Anne Hardy, group chief innovation officer at Saint-Gobain, said at the Thursday ribbon cutting for the $30-million lab.
Saint-Gobain North America opened its new fire testing laboratory on Thursday, the latest expansion of its Innovation Hub North America campus in Northborough. The lab is designed to test Saint-Gobain’s construction material products for fire certification standards. Bringing these capabilities in-house will allow the France-based conglomerate to be more nimble in research, development, and innovation, the company announced Thursday.Saint-Gobain cut the ribbon for their $30-million fire safety lab on Thursday, bringing its fire certification standards testing capabilities in-house. PHOTO COURTESY OF SAINT-GOBAIN“This is a strategic investment,” Anne Hardy, group chief innovation officer at Saint-Gobain, said at the Thursday ribbon cutting for the $30-million lab. “It’s one that’s well appreciated globally across the company and clearly recognized as an important building block of what we need for these sustainable solutions across the country.”Saint-Gobain designated the Northborough facility as one of its five global innovation hubs in June. The campus is expected to employ 400 when fully completed.The 15,000-square-foot facility features two large furnaces. One furnace is meant to test vertical components like walls, with the other meant to test horizontal components, such as ceilings. The facility’s state-of-the-art emissions systems will prevent any odors or impacts to the surrounding community, according to Saint-Gobain.Construction began on the lab in October 2024 and was led by Milford-based Consigli Construction. It comes as part of a broader, decade-long expansion to the campus used by Saint-Gobain since the 1980s. The fire lab joins existing acoustic and weather testing capabilities at the campus, part of Saint-Gobain’s efforts to offer testing of commercial construction products.This furnace is meant to test vertical materials, such as those used to build walls. PHOTO | ERIC CASEYThe 26-acre campus spans across both Northborough and Marlborough but has a Northborough address. Saint-Gobain received a tax credit worth $195,000 from Northborough in 2025.Headquartered just outside Paris, Saint-Gobain has 162,000 employees across locations in 81 countries, bringing in $53.63 billion in sales in 2025. The company has 1,200 employees in Central Massachusetts, according to information provided to the WBJ Research Department, with two sites in Worcester serving as additional parts of its local footprint. Originally a mirror manufacturer, Saint-Gobain traces its roots back to 1665.Eric Casey is the managing editor at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the real estate and banking & finance industries.
