Insulation industry news from Global Insulation

UK/Ireland: Roofing and insulation materials supplier SIG took the gloss off a strong first-half performance in 2011 by signalling a slowdown for the rest of the year. The company said that it still expects to make progress in 2011, but that growth will 'moderate' in the second half of the year due to a combination of tough comparative numbers and general economic factors.

The Sheffield-based group reported a slump in consumer spending in the UK and Ireland on areas such as home improvements. It said that reduced government spending was also putting pressure on public sector work.

Total revenues rose by 9% year-on-year to Euro1.57bn in the first half of 2011 with underlying profits 84% ahead at Euro38.3m. The company said that the UK and Ireland saw a 'noticeable softening in demand' towards the end of the second quarter of 2011.

UK: A report has revealed that the UK's insulation market experienced growth in 2010 after declining in 2009. Research and Markets' 'Building Insulation Market - UK 2011-2015' also reveals that insulation is expected to reach an estimated market size of Euro1.16m by 2015.

The report also says that the UK insulation market will continue to be underpinned by the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target, the Green Deal and new building regulations. The largest market sector in 2010 was mineral wool insulation.

The report comes at the same time as figures were released by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, which show that just 57% of Britain's roofs are fitted with proper loft insulation and only 58% of buildings have cavity insulation.

The UK energy and climate change secretary Chris Huhne said, "At a time when money is tight and with energy prices predicted to rise, householders are missing out on over Euro110 of savings every single year by not getting their lofts lagged and cavity walls filled." The government hopes that an additional three million homes will be fitted with insulation by the end of 2012.

US: Owens Corning has released its 5th annual Sustainability Report, outlining the company's environmental footprint reduction performance. "Our 2010 Sustainability Report demonstrates Owens Corning's continued focus on and progress towards improvements in greening our operations and products and accelerating energy efficiency and renewables penetration in the built environment," said Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer Frank O'Brien-Bernini. "We have met three of our seven goals already and are confident that six of the seven goals will be achieved by 2012."

Among the key accomplishments highlighted in the report is a 24% intensity reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to 2009 levels. The company removed 950,000t of CO2 from its operations in 2010, which is equivalent to eliminating the CO2 impact of more than 170,000 passenger cars. The report also detailed progress towards intensity reductions in energy usage, and reductions in nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, particulate matter, waste-to-landfill contributions and water usage.

The company took the opportunity to launch a new set of 2020 goals designed to raise the bar on its commitment to sustainability. The announced 2020 goals will target reductions in energy, greenhouse gas, water, toxic air emissions, particulate matter and waste-to-landfill measures, as well as supplier sustainability and life cycle assessments.

"These new goals raise the bar on our commitment to sustainability and reflect an increasingly holistic approach that encompasses how our company operates, the attributes of our products and our desire to affect change by partnering with our customers and suppliers to deliver sustainable solutions," added O'Brien-Bernini.

The disagreement comes at the same time as the publication of an article in the journal Respirology that warns of massive rises in deaths from asbestos-related lung diseases in Asia in the coming decades. Dr Ken Takahashi, Acting Director of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Occupational Health (WHOCCOH) and his team put together data on asbestos use in 47 Asian countries for the report.

Asian countries accounted for 64% of the global consumption of asbestos in 2001-2007, a striking increase from 14% between 1920 and 1970. This is the result of unregulated asbestos import and use in many Asian countries.

Europe: The EU energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger has said that European Union (EU) member states should install insulation in their public buildings, going as far as saying that the 27 nations should be forced to do so. Oettinger thinks that insulation should be improved by 3% in public buildings and that that this improvement should occur year-on-year starting in 2014.

The EU is ultimately aiming to cut energy consumption in buildings by 20% by 2020. It would also like to create new public procurement rules aimed at awarding contracts to products and services that are energy-efficient.

Kazakhstan: Ecostroyservice JSC has commissioned a manufacturing line to produce a wide range of insulating concrete products in the Karaganda region of central Kazakhstan. The total investment in the project will be USD1.6m design production capacity is 36,000m³/yr.

"The positive feature of these building materials is low heat conductivity," said Ecostroyservice's Serik Akhmetov at the plant's launch. "Production of special heat insulation materials will allow heat losses to be reduced by 10-20 times," he added.