Insulation industry news from Global Insulation

Denmark: Rockwool has won the Long Term Value Creation prize at construction company EY and the Danish Chamber of Commerce’s Sustainability Awards 2021. The judges chose Rockwool for its clear ambitions for operating as a responsible businesse that positively impacts the sustainable transition, with demonstrated progress towards fulfilling those ambitions.

CEO Jens Birgersson said “Sustainability is firmly integrated into our overall business strategy. We pursue a fact-based, auditable approach to document progress in maximising our products’ positive impact while minimising the negative impact of our operations. Sustained long-term value creation is precisely what we seek to achieve.”

UK: The Construction Leadership Council and Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy have named Knauf Insulation UK & Ireland a ‘Business Champion’ under the CO₂nstruct Zero building industry decarbonisation transition initiative. The status signifies demonstrated leadership in promoting best practice to reduce construction’s carbon footprint.

Northern Europe regional managing director Neil Hargreaves said “Net zero is a colossal challenge, and to achieve it will require unprecedented collaboration. As the biggest supplier of insulation into newbuild homes in the UK and the nation’s only manufacturer of both glass and stone Wool, we have an important role to play.” He added “We look forward to working with our partners across the supply chain to create a built environment that’s fit for the future. Improved insulation will be at the heart of UK construction’s efforts to decarbonise.”

Denmark: Rockwool has signed a new revolving credit facility worth Euro600m. The facility replaced its existing facilities and has a built-in pricing mechanism connecting its costs to three externally-assured sustainability goals. The goals are CO₂ emission reduction, increasing the number of countries in which it offers its recycling schemes and reducing factory waste. The purposes of the facility are to strengthen capital structure and support long-term growth.

Chief Financial Officer Kim Junge Andersen said, “While we already are a net-carbon-negative company, we have committed ourselves to ambitious sustainability targets to reduce our carbon footprint and waste from operations and to expand our recycling offerings. To measure our progress, it is important for us to have a fact-based and auditable approach to how we maximise our products’ positive impact while minimising the environmental impact of our operations.”

Ireland/UK: Knauf Insulation has launched a new packaging including new designs across the whole range, an upgrade to its compression technology and more environmentally-friendly packaging.

The new packaging designs feature bigger and clearer product names. Products are colour-coded into thermal conductivity groups consistent across the whole glass mineral wool range, and essential features such as the Euroclass A1 reaction to fire classification and Ecose Technology, Knauf Insulation’s unique bio-based binder, are more easily identifiable. The Earthwool brand has been phased out to simplify the branding structure, and a new brand, Rocksilk, has been introduced for its rock mineral wool product range. The insulation producer says that a further upgrade of the compression technology on the glass mineral wool range enables, on average, 15% more insulation per roll and 25% more packs on each pallet for slabs.

“We’ve listened to our customers, but we have also been proactive, trying to pre-empt future needs,” said Vanessa Rae, Marketing Director at Knauf Insulation Northern Europe. “We know how important it is to choose the right product for the application quickly, and move and store it efficiently, whether in-branch or on-site. We also know that sustainability matters more than ever, so we’ve taken these steps to reduce our products’ carbon footprint further so customers can rely on us to help them tick the green boxes for their projects.”

Austria: Austrotherm has launched a nationwide extruded polystyrene (XPS) insulation cut-off collection service. The service will pick up waste XPS insulation from building sites for recycling in production at Austrotherm’s Purbach XPS insulation plant.

Technical director Heimo Pascher said “Our XPS sheets are ideal for recycling and can be fed back into the production process - this enables us to reduce CO₂ emissions and the consumption of resources in production. We are taking an important step in the direction of the circular economy.” He added “We have carefully analysed the savings effect. By recycling we reduce the CO₂ emissions in the disposal of construction site waste by at least 50%. With every tonne of XPS which we recycle, 1.80t of CO₂ can be saved. Or, to put it more impressively, every tonne of XPS that we recycle from construction sites saves as much CO₂ as around 148 European beech trees bind in a year.”

Ireland: Kingspan’s consolidated net sales increased by 24% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2021 to Euro1.28bn. Insulated panels sales grew by 25% having started the year with a strong order backlog and insulation boards grew 12%. Communications company Edison Group said that growth was most pronounced in Germany, France and Benelux and Latin America, with a strong order intake in North America and the UK. Net debt at 31 March 2021 was Euro352m.

The company noted increasing inflationary pressure and challenges regarding availability despite strong demand and a strong backlog. As such, it has given no guidance for the year.

Kingspan highlighted its inaugural Planet Passionate sustainability report. The report details the company’s achievements in the first year of its 2019 10-year sustainability strategy. In 2020, the producer achieved net-zero energy and cut CO2 emissions by 5% year-on-year. It issued a Euro750m green private placement in September 2020. The company called the major achievements the ‘first leg’ of its decarbonisation journey. In its latest report, it set the target of net-zero CO2 emissions by 2030. Additionally, it is aiming to halve CO2 intensity over the same period. Altogether, Planet Passionate covers 12 sustainability targets across the key areas of energy, circularity, CO2 and water.

Chief executive officer Gene Murtagh said “Our Planet Passionate targets demand radical thinking and action. Our aim is to get as close to zero emissions in our manufacturing as technically possible by transforming our processes. Industry has a vital role to play in addressing the threat of climate change.” He added that the group target of 50% primary raw materials CO2 intensity reduction “will also lower the embodied carbon in our products, and consequently the whole life carbon of buildings.”

Spain: Knauf Insulation Iberia has launched a building design competition across Spanish universities and schools. Called Race to Zero, the competition will assess applicants’ designs for energy efficiency, innovation and residential sustainability. The best submission across all three categories will win its designer Euro15,000. The company will additionally invite the winner and runners up for practical training at its headquarters. The submission deadline is 28 May 2021.

General Director Oscar del Rio said, “This contest was born with the vocation of putting the building in its rightful place in the field of sustainability, given the importance it has for the fulfilment of the Sustainable Development Goals according to our company's ‘For A Better World’ strategy.”

Denmark: Rockwool has detailed its sustainability achievements for 2020 in its Sustainability Reports 2020. During the year, assessment agency S&P Trucost certified all of Rockwool’s products as ‘positively impactful’ in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The company said that its insulation sold in 2020 saved 874,000GWh of heating energy. It said that the lifetime CO₂ emissions savings of its products are more than 100 times greater than their production emissions. It halved its production waste going to landfill compared to 2019, against reduction targets of 40% by 2022 and 85%. It achieved another of its interim sustainability goals early by increasing water efficiency by 10%, against a targeted 10% by 2022 and 20% by 2030.

Denmark: The Danish Society of Engineers has selected Rockwool as the European Business Award for the Environment winner in the Denmark category. The producer says that the award recognises its technology innovation and implementation of sustainable processes leading to more than 70% CO₂ emissions reduction. It said that its development of fuel-flexible melting technology has allowed a shift away from coal towards natural gas and biogas.

Group operations and technology senior vice president Bjørn Andersen said, “Winning this award testifies to the fact that sustainability is at the core of our business. The engineering and technology innovations this award recognises build on our decades-long efforts to improve the energy efficiency and reduce the environmental impact of our own operations. More than 50 engineers in Denmark have been working on the patented fuel-flexible melting technology being highlighted today. Ready-made solutions did not exist, so we invented them ourselves.”

He added, “Because we operate in many countries around the world, we also know that we cannot put all our technology eggs in one basket. That is why Rockwool has also developed a large-scale electric melting technology that is well-suited in countries where the electricity grid is already low carbon. At Rockwool’s factory in Moss, Norway, for example, we have recently inaugurated the industry’s largest electric melter, reducing emissions by approximately 80% compared to the previous technology used there.”

US: The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) has named Owens Corning on its Climate Change A List of companies that took actions to cut emissions, reduce climate impacts and help build the low-carbon economy in 2020. 270 companies won the top status from a pool of 5800 applicants. The CDP also named the company amongst 106 companies on the 2020 Water Security A List.