Insulation industry news from Global Insulation

Sweden: Rockwool says that it plans to build a new 100,000t/yr stone wool insulation plant in Eskilstuna, Södermanland. When commissioned after June 2027, the plant will serve the Swedish and Finnish markets. It will run on low-carbon electricity from Sweden’s national grid.

Nordics regional managing director Frank Larsen said "Our customers are increasingly demanding low-carbon footprint building materials to achieve their own decarbonisation objectives as well as EU-wide targets in the Energy Efficiency and Energy Performance of Buildings directives. Rockwool's proprietary large-scale electrical melting technology, drawing on Sweden's abundant supply of low-carbon electricity, will help meet this need, which we expect to grow over time as the EU directives get implemented."

Ireland: Kingspan has contested the European Commission (EC)'s preliminary findings from its investigation of the company’s abandoned attempt to acquire Slovenia-based Trimo in 2021. The Commission preliminarily found that Kingspan negligently or intentionally provided incorrect, incomplete and misleading information during the merger review. The relevant information reportedly pertained to Kingspan’s internal organisation, market scope, barriers to entry and expansion and competition closeness with Trimo. The Irish Independent newspaper has reported that applicable fines may be up to 1% of Kingspan’s annual global turnover.

Kingspan disputed the preliminary findings and will now formulate a response. In a statement, the company said “Kingspan has fully co-operated with the commission throughout the period relating to the Trimo process, which commenced in September 2020, continued until Kingspan withdrew from the process in April 2022, and was followed by the EC's investigation, which opened in November 2022. This Trimo application was unusual and uniquely onerous given both the level of information sought and the fact that the process occurred during the Covid-19 outbreak. It is in no way representative of the long and productive relationship Kingspan has with the EC. Since the Trimo process began in 2020, Kingspan has secured four successful clearances, supporting investments by Kingspan in energy-efficient and low-carbon buildings that are essential to the EC's green transition."

UK: Recticel says that new requirements following the UK’s exit from the EU have created estimated extra one-time costs of Euro464,000. Local press has reported that UK-based laboratory testing is estimated to cost Euro325,000 across eight products, while new fire tests for the same products will add a further Euro130,000.

Senior technical manager Simon Blackham said “It’s the same standards, to the same test method, the same everything - and it would have to be paid for, ultimately, by the customer.”

Spain: Knauf Insulation has called on Spain, as the current president of the Council of the European Union, to further decarbonise building stock in the region.

Oscar Del Rio, the general manager of Knauf Insulation Iberia, said “The outcome of domestic politics may still be uncertain at the moment, but on the international stage, Spain holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union until the end of December 2023 and its focus must be crystal clear. Europe needs to seize the opportunity of the recast of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) to ensure an approach that will decarbonise its building stock by increasing renovation rates and committing to quality retrofit standards that deliver real performance.”

The insulation producer cited research by the Building Performance Institute (BPIE), which it supported, that found that insulating all Europe’s residential buildings would cut energy demand for space heating by 44%, compared to 2020, making a ‘significant’ contribution to energy security and the EU’s 2050 climate goals. The company has also urged policy makers to introduce ‘one-stop shops’ for renovation to enable building owners to make retrofitting easier and to use digital tools to make it easier for people to view potential performance savings.

The company used Spain as an example of a country that needs a more ambitious renovation strategy. It noted that, according to Spain’s Energy Renovation of the Building Sector strategy, 9.7 million homes or 50% of residential buildings were built before 1980 and an additional one million are described as in a poor or dilapidated condition. In addition, 81% of existing buildings are in the E, F or G emissions categories and 84.5% are in these categories for energy consumption. It quoted research by Renovate Europe that found that the renovation rate of buildings in Spain was eight to 10 times lower than the average for neighbouring countries.

Belgium: PU Europe has issued a statement to the relevant European bodies responsible for fluorinated gases (F-gases) emphasising the role of low global warming potential (GWP) of F-gases in insulation foam applications.

The association has suggested that, instead of total ban of F-gases, a lowering of the threshold should be considered as an alternative. In its view a lower threshold would allow the users of thermal insulation to continue to benefit from products made from closed-cell polyurethane foam. It warned that a ban on the use of low GWP F-gases in insulation foam would have “significant implications for the Renovation Wave, as approximately 80% of the buildings that will exist in 2050 have already been constructed.” PU Europe emphasises the need to find solutions that strike the right balance between addressing operating greenhouse gas emissions from the existing building stock and controlling low GWP F-gases.

The European Commission proposed in early 2022, as part of its so-called 'fit for 55' package, to further reduce emissions of F-gases. It wants to change the existing quota system, gradually reducing the supply of hydrofluorocarbons to the European Union market to 2.4 % of 2015 levels by 2048.

PU Europe was founded in 1981 as BING to become the single European voice for the polyurethane insulation industry. The association represents insulation producers, raw material suppliers and component manufacturers from eleven countries with activities covering the entire continent.

Europe: Knauf Insulation has joined Daikin, Danfoss, Rockwool, Saint-Gobain, Signify and Velux to promote building energy efficiency in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The six companies have signed a memorandum that commits them to work together to encourage cooperation and allocation of ‘personal and financial resources’ on a country level to establish and maintain national associations equipped with the expertise to engage in public debates effectively and the skills to inspire better policies.

Radek Bedrna, Knauf Insulation’s managing director for Eastern Europe and Middle East, said “This memorandum is a powerful commitment to tackle the building and energy challenges facing CEE. It will provide the campaigning initiatives with the needed support to drive the policy changes that will be transformational for building renovation in the region.” He added that the region has five out of seven European Union (EU) countries with the highest gas saving potential arising from insulating residential buildings. Two thirds of the 43.6m homes in single- and multi-family house in the CEE region were reportedly built before 1989 and are energy inefficient.

The companies signed the document at the Central and Eastern European Energy Efficiency Forum (C4E) in late May 2023. The forum, which brought together more than 240 public authority representatives with advocacy groups, non-government organisations (NGO) and private companies, called on policy makers to roll out well-designed subsidy schemes with a long-term outlook.

Switzerland: SIKA has joined the World Green Infrastructure Network (WGIN) and its European Chapter regional advocacy section.

Sika’s head of target market roofing Patrick Horisberger said "With our membership in WGIN, we want to influence and support the development of green roofs by sharing know-how, supporting studies and developing new solutions."

New Zealand: The New Zealand government has announced the lifting of Level 4 lockdown outside of Auckland. Radio New Zealand News has reported that this will enable construction to resume. Inside Auckland, insulation is among four ‘critical products’ that the government has allowed to resume production.

The Building Industry Federation (BIF) said that the government had listened to suppliers' concerns.

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."

US: The chief executive officers (CEO) of 13 US companies, including BASF and DuPont, are lobbying the President and Congress to enact business-led climate change legislation. This initiative, known as the CEO Climate Dialogue, urges the government to put in place a long-term federal policy as soon as possible, in accordance with a set of six guiding principles. The group aims to build bipartisan support for climate policies that it says will, “… increase regulatory and business certainty, reduce climate risk, and spur investment and innovation needed to meet science-based emissions reduction targets.”

Companies involved in the CEO Dialogue include BASF, BP, Citi, Dominion Energy, Dow, DTE Energy, DuPont, Exelon, Ford Motor Company, LafargeHolcim, PG&E, Shell, and Unilever. Four environmental groups have also supplied input to the initiative. These are the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, Environmental Defense Fund, the Nature Conservancy and World Resources Institute.

The six principles include: ‘significantly’ reducing US greenhouse gas emissions; allowing an effective timeline for reductions that will enable capital intensive industries to adjust in an ‘economically rational manner’; instituting a market-based price on carbon; making the policies durable and responsible; doing no harm to the competitiveness of the US economy with particular attention to carbon leakage; and promoting equity. Specifically the initiative says that US policy should ensure the country is on a path to achieve economy-wide emissions reductions of 80% or more by 2050 with ‘aggressive’ short and medium term emissions reductions.

“DuPont is pleased to be part of the CEO Climate Dialogue and support its guiding principles to accelerate the development of federal policy on climate change. At DuPont, our science and innovation is inextricably linked with sustainability practices that deliver specialised materials that contribute to a safer, healthier, more sustainable world. We believe strong, consistent policy measures and a cohesive regulatory environment are needed to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy and foster innovation, investment and economic growth,” said Marc Doyle, CEO-Elect of DuPont.