Insulation industry news from Global Insulation
Saint-Gobain to power 20% of Italian operations renewably
09 February 2024Italy: Saint-Gobain has entered into a 10-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Switzerland-based utilities provider Axpo Holding. Under the agreement, Axpo Holding will supply 22GWh/yr of renewable electricity from a newly built wind farm in Puglia. The deal will fulfil 11% of Saint-Gobain's Italian energy needs across 10 sites.
The latest PPA with Axpo Italia is Saint-Gobain's fifth in Italy. Collectively, these will bring the group’s reliance on renewables in its Italian operations to 20%.
Metso launches electric mineral wool furnace
26 January 2024Finland: Metso has launched the Outotec Mineral Wool Furnace, an electric furnace for mineral wool production. The new model is based on Metso's established proprietary equipment, used in ferroalloy and slag cleaning applications. As part of Metso's Planet Positive offering, the furnace offers reduced CO2 emissions, high plant availability, extended life and an easily customisable modular design for specific applications.
Technology director Tom Ronnberg said “Demand for insulation materials is growing due to tightening energy efficiency requirements. At the same time, the insulation material industry is aiming for better efficiency and carbon neutrality in their production processes.”
Owens Corning ranks on Dow Jones Sustainability World Index
18 December 2023US: Owens Corning celebrated its inclusion on the Sustainability World Index for its 14th consecutive year on 14 December 2023. Companies’ S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA) contributed towards their assessment for the index. Owens Corning has a score of 85.
Chair and chief executive officer Brian Chambers said "Our industry-leading score is a testament to Owens Corning's unwavering commitment to sustainability and our progress toward achieving our 2030 sustainability goals. We remain dedicated to providing sustainable solutions to our customers and making a positive impact on the world."
Knauf Insulation releases sustainability highlights report for 2023
07 December 2023Belgium: Knauf Insulation has released its ‘Sustainability Journey: 2023 Highlights’ report. It reveals the company’s sustainability strategy achievements focusing on safety, employee engagement, decarbonisation and the circular economy.
The company reduced its absolute full-scope emissions for its mineral wool production by 8.2% year-on-year to 1.34Mt of CO2e in 2022 from 1.46Mt in 2021, mainly due to a significant fall in Scope 2 emissions. it currently has a target to reduce its specific embodied carbon emissions by 15% from 2021 to 2025. The recycled content of its glass mineral wool products fell to 55% in 2022 from 64%, despite the company having a target of 65% by 2025. It explained that sourcing large volumes of recycled materials of sufficient quality had proved challenging in some markets. However, it did increase the recycled content of its rock mineral wool products to 13% from 11%, with a target of 25% set for 2024. It also reduced its total recordable incident rate by 8% to 5.9 from 6.4 against a target of below 5 for 2025.
Dominique Bossan, the chief executive officer for Europe, Middle East and Asia at Knauf Group, said “The report documents our progress towards achieving our 2025 sustainability targets. It shows the areas where we need to improve, celebrates where we have made positive progress and pays tribute to the hard work of our teams."
Owens Corning is a Top 10 Corporate Citizen
19 October 2023US: Owens Corning was named among the Top 10 companies on the Best Corporate Citizen list 2023. The list ranks all companies on the Russell 1000 Index by transparency and performance across 184 environmental, social and governance factors. The result represents Owens Corning’s sixth consecutive year as a Top 10 company.
Senior vice president and chief sustainability officer David Rabuano said “This achievement is particularly meaningful as it reinforces the importance of our work and how we do it. This directly speaks to the commitment of our 19,000 employees in support of our mission to build a sustainable future through material innovation.”
North America: Kingspan Insulated Panels North America has launched its online Sustainability Resource Center. The platform offers educational content pertaining to sustainable construction practices by topic, type or role. It can be accessed via Kingspan's Planet Passionate portal.
Director of Sustainability Brent Trenga said "Kingspan's Sustainability Resource Center is a one-stop shop where industry professionals can expand their knowledge on the environmental impacts from the built environment. This is a resource that can be bookmarked and referenced at any given time. We want to make it easy for architects, contractors and building owners to arm themselves with information that will help them make sustainable choices in building material."
Knauf Insulation lobbies Council of the European Union to decarbonise building stock
29 September 2023Spain: 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.
North America: Saint-Gobain has signed a 100MW solar power purchase agreement (PPA), called Danish Fields, with TotalEnergies. The Danish Fields PPA will supply Saint-Gobain North America with solar energy for 15 years, commencing in 2024. Saint-Gobain says that it expects the PPA to eliminate 90,000t/yr of CO2 emissions across its operations. This is the group’s third deal of its kind.
Saint-Gobain North America CEO Mark Rayfield said “With this agreement, Saint-Gobain North America will further reduce its CO2 emissions, demonstrating how fast the manufacturing industry can transform when long term solutions are at hand. This renewable energy project is a new milestone on the way to meeting Saint-Gobain’s commitment to reduce Scope 1 and 2 CO2 emissions by 33% by 2030 compared to 2017, and to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.”
Owens Corning joins European Alliance to Save Energy
19 September 2023Europe: US-based Owens Corning has joined the European Alliance to Save Energy (EU-ASE). The producer said that its membership in the alliance will help in its drive for best practices in material innovation and energy efficiency in Europe.
Owens Corning’s Europe regional regulatory and sustainability senior counsel said “Owens Corning is honoured to join the EU-ASE. This is an exciting opportunity to strengthen our partnerships with key stakeholders and continue to build a sustainable future through material innovation. We are committed to the European Green Deal objectives and will continue to share best practices and knowledge across industries on key sustainability topics, such as energy efficiency, sustainability and digitalisation, while contributing to the green transition in Europe.”
Germany: Grenzebach says that it has completed the construction of the Hütten wood fibre insulation plant in Bavaria's Neustadt an der Waldnaab District for Ziegler Group subsidiary Naturheld. The plant took a total of 12 months to build, and will run on 100% renewable energy. Naturheld will use waste wood from Ziegler Group's wood processing operations in the region. Grenzebach says that it developed a novel wood blending system for implementation at the plant. The supplier said that the plant has a wood fibre production capacity of 6t/hr, and is capable of expanding to 10t/hr. The plant gives Ziegler Group the capacity to produce 1.5Mm2/yr of its wood fibre insulation product.
Managing director Stefan Ziegler said "Building the wood fiber insulation board plant within such an extremely short period was possible only thanks to the close cooperation with a renowned automation partner of international standing like Grenzebach. As a solution provider, Grenzebach supplied both the necessary product and technical know-how and expertise and was able to make the required capacities available at all times."