Kingspan Insulation recently published its first ever Planet Passionate Annual report, tracking the first year of progress against its 10-year Planet Passionate Strategy launched in 2019.

Planet Passionate is Kingspan’s 10-year global sustainability programme aiming to impact three significant global issues: climate change, circularity and protection of the natural world.

Last year Kingspan reduced emissions from operations by 5.2%, the first step towards the target of net zero carbon manufacturing by 2030, with the aim of reducing absolute emissions across its operations to the lowest possible level with carbon-neutralising measures.

This is a massive transformation exercise across more than 165 of Kingspan’s current manufacturing facilities worldwide, in addition to supporting new acquisitions to decarbonise their operations as quickly as possible.

Kingspan will also call on its primary raw material suppliers to commit to reducing the carbon intensity of their supplied raw materials by 50% by 2030 in a bid to reduce the embodied carbon in its products even further.

“Our Planet Passionate targets demand radical thinking and action. Our aim is to get as close to zero emissions in our manufacturing as technically possible by transforming our processes. Industry has a vital role to play in addressing the threat of climate change, and we are proud to have achieved a 5.2% reduction in our carbon emissions in the first year of this plan. Our target of halving the carbon intensity of primary raw materials used in our supply chain will also lower the embodied carbon in our products, and consequently the whole life carbon of buildings,” Kingspan CEO Gene Murtagh said.

Kingspan has taken a leading role in combatting climate change. Last year it received a climate ‘A’ rating for the fourth year in a row by the Carbon Disclosure Project, the international not-for-profit that measures the environmental impact of thousands of companies.

During 2020, Kingspan’s new LIFECycle product circularity framework was launched, which will be used to both evaluate and drive circularity in Kingspan’s products. Using LIFECycle, Kingspan is co-creating new concept products with suppliers, with plans to launch pioneering circular insulation solutions in the near future.

“With clear direction from our global CEO Gene Murtaugh and the commitment of our people at every level of our business, Planet Passionate is not just a strategic direction, but a way of life for all of us in Kingspan as we strive to do our bit to combat climate change,” Scott Gibson, managing director of Kingspan Insulation Asia Pacific said.

View the full version of Kingspan’s Planet Passionate Report here.

Image credit: Jannes Linders