Insulation industry news from Global Insulation

UK: The Energy Efficiency Infrastructure Group (EEIG), a coalition of businesses and charities has published a report into the creation of jobs post-coronavirus lockdown, in which it concluded that 40,000 insulation jobs lie in modernising the UK’s energy-inefficient housing stock before mid-2022, and a further 110,000 jobs before 2030. BBC News has reported that each job will cost Euro65,800 to create, compared to Euro279,000 per job in road repairs, and will be evenly spread across all UK regions. Besides generating wealth, the EEIG says that the work will cut pollution, improve health and cut energy bills by Euro558/yr per household. EEIG chair Sarah Kostense-Winterton said, "Our country is in dire need of a green stimulus recovery. There could be no better time to future-proof our homes while providing buoyancy to our drained economy."

UK: The British Rigid Urethane Foam Manufacturers' Association (BRUFMA) has called for the government to ensure that any new house building campaigns deliver energy efficient buildings and continue to increase the building standards for the sector. BRUFMA was responding to the publication of a White Paper or government report on the local market entitled ‘Fixing our broken housing market.’ The association recognised that the White Paper highlighted a need to continually review the current energy performance standards with regard to climate change targets and to domestic fuel poverty. It added that this should be extended to include the performance in flood risk areas of housing and the materials used in their construction.

‘The White Paper launches a consultation with a range of recommendations to increase numbers of homes being built in the UK. However, there are likely to be many conflicting views so I hope the government doesn’t use this as a way of kicking the problem into the long grass. However many houses are built we must ensure that all new housing is highly energy efficient in line with our climate change objectives. Just because there is a rush to build shouldn’t be an excuse to lower the quality of the thermal performance. And we certainly don’t want to have to come back and retrofit in 20 years because the houses we build today do not meet tomorrow’s requirements,” said Simon Storer, the chief executive of BRUFMA.