SUSTAINABILITY


SUSTAINABLE INVESTMENT CONTINUES APACE


BMJ chats to Vanessa Rae, Knauf Insulation’s Regional Director of Sustainability.


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nauf Insulation’s products exist to provide thermal, fire safety and acoustic benefits and reduce carbon emissions. Our purpose is two-fold;


high performance, low-carbon products for low-carbon built environments. There is no path to net zero without improving the energy efficiency of the UK’s 28 million poorly insulated homes - we need high performance buildings that deliver in the real world. We work closely with the government and provide our expertise to improve regulations governing building energy efficiency and real performance. We also push cultural change in the industry by sharing our knowledge around sustainability, helping our stakeholders to make educated product choices, and focusing on the quality of installation.


Internally, we are continuing to invest heavily in resources, skills, tools and technology to ensure we make progress and that sustainability remains a top priority for our company Sustainability is at the heart of everything we do. Every stage of our process is considered, from conserving natural resources to reducing the impact of our own processes, including packaging and distribution. For example, we use up to 80% recycled glass cullet to make our glass mineral wool. In St. Helens, we have partnered with Veolia who built a waste processing facility next to our factory that supplies us directly. Using locally recycled content helps us to reduce the energy we need to melt the glass, and saves us approximately 375,000 miles of road journeys annually.


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This process also uses around 60,000 tonnes of glass, every year - mostly glass bottles and jars collected locally – which otherwise could have gone into landfill.


Our products are manufactured in the UK


and our focus on continuous improvement means that our glass mineral wool products have some of the lowest embodied carbon on the market. Most of our range is produced using our unique ECOSE® Technology binder, which contains no added formaldehyde or phenol, and is less energy-intensive to produce than typical binders.


We hold a BES 6001 certification with a ‘very good’ rating, demonstrating that our products are made from responsibly sourced constituent materials. We are also the first manufacturer in Europe to achieve a Declare ‘Red List Free’ label for rock and glass mineral wool products. The Declare label is a voluntary scheme that brings transparency to construction product labelling. The label includes where a product is made, its life expectancy and end-of-life options, its ingredients, VOC levels, and whether it contains chemicals featured on the ‘Red List’. Accreditations are important, they transparently demonstrate the impact of our products to internationally recognised standards. In 2020, we introduced the‘For a Better World’ sustainability strategy, which has four pillars: Put People First, Achieve Zero Carbon, Deliver a Circular Economy and Create Better Buildings. Under Achieve Zero Carbon, we are set to reduce the embodied carbon of our products by 15% no later than 2025 (from our 2021 baseline).


Right: Vanessa Rae, Knauf Insulation’s


Regional Director of Sustainability


Knauf Insulation’s short term sustainability goals feed into the Knauf Group’s ambitious longer-term strategy, which is to achieve net zero by 2045, with a 50% reduction in scope 1 and 2 emissions, and a 30% reduction in scope 3 emissions by 2032.


We’re committed to reducing our total carbon emissions in absolute terms. Paradoxically, the world needs more insulation to reduce energy usage – and so we need to deliver this reduction while also expanding our capacity. This means that our commitment to carbon reduction is even larger than it first appears, because we must assume the business will grow in line with market needs.


There are also infrastructure challenges. The national grid is lagging in terms of what’s needed for electrification, and opportunities to deploy other renewable power solutions like hydrogen are similarly dependent on national inventory. We are merchants’ partner for low-carbon insulation products that help create high- performance buildings. We will always share information about our products, regulations and labels in a transparent way that educates and empowers merchants to advise their customers. n


A supplement to builders merchants journal June 2024


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