Welcome to the Glass Age

17 Sciences for Sustainable Development (IYBSSD) which included an International Year of Mineralogy. While ‘competition’ was the initial reaction, collaboration and mutual support with these groups were soon agreed to as the way forward. The IYBSSD, delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, was finally approved at the General Assembly of UN on December 2 nd 2021. Being aware of their value and potential contributions the International Commission on Glass also approached several glass-based organizations as possible working partners. The International Committee of Museums, along with the Community of Glass Associations promoted by VITRUM and the Italian Government, accepted the challenge and joined ICG as sponsors of IYoG with many national Glass Societies to help. A formal application for a United Nations International Year of Glass for 2022 to celebrate the technological, scientific, artistic and economic role of glass as an enabling material crucial to many technologies and cultures was shifting from a possibility to a probability. A seed germinates Meanwhile throughout these initial negotiations written documentation was in preparation. A major 20 page document was created from an initial draft by Prof. John C. Mauro, the Pennsylvania State University, and enhanced/modified by many others drawing on information from numerous sources. Using an electronic format for easy circulation and with the help of David Moore, Managing Editor, The Society of Glass Technology, it was subsequently incorporated into an eight-page illustrated brochure. A document on the global economics of the glass Figure 1.4. A stained glass window reminding us of a Green World outside needing our care. Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Sansbury-Mills and Friends of the American Wing Funds, 2010, 2010.122a–d.