15/06/2026
Michael Hunter has invested over half his working life to reduce his impact on the environment, since founding Twists Glass in 1998, without reducing quality of design or manufacture .
Since 2010 he has researched and implemented a carbon reduction strategy that has lowered CO2E, reduced waste energy , recycled , reused and decreased material waste in his studio. he is the initiator and founding pioneer to achieve and implement exceptional environment performance in studio Glass in the UK.
Sustainability
Michael Hunter truly broke the traditional studio old theory, by realising that a standard melting furnace burns constantly wasting a minimum of 16 hours a day when artists are not actively working.
Think about that waste of energy for just one moment .
It is a huge waste of up to 5840 hours a year, consider the carbon reduction on the planet this is saving.
Michael Hunter reduced his carbon foot to 3.4 tons in 2024- 2025 from natural gas .
If your first thought was the financial saving you are not thinking of the planet, you have misunderstood totally this concept of turn it off when not in use .
Even electric powered melting furnaces and studios have to waste 16 hours a day of waste energy as the equipment idles overnight , often having to draw from the grid, but its still waste energy even when the energy is free from Solar panels.
So we are not ready to swap our natural gas furnace or studio for electric any time soon .
We do have a 100% zero Carbon energy for Business electric contract supplier but we still produce some CO2E, from running Kilns and daily appliances. We do not waste energy . When our kilns and are turned off we sit at virtually zero out put from electricity , due to emergency lighting and fire alarm system or a fridge running .
Gas consumption is Zero usage once we finish our working day and switch off are Glory hole and Iron warmer.
Winning the South Of Scotland VIBES award in 2004 allowed Michael to go down as a pioneer of the Studio glass Sustainability challenge of 21st century.
Picture of beach landscape bowl and vases was made whilst our melting furnace was off cold and empty .
