SMART: Global “Green” Manufacturer Kingspan ($1b Sales in the Americas) Faces Increasing Scrutiny Over Fire Safety

U.K. recall of Kooltherm K15 insulation could impact U.S. market; U.S. government urged to investigate Kingspan’s fire safety testing on products sold in the U.S.

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A growing building “cladding crisis” and related government inquiry in the United Kingdom has revealed a series of shortcomings concerning the fire safety of Kooltherm K15 insulation by global “green” manufacturer Kingspan Group plc (KGSPY.PK).

Following revelations from the ongoing U.K. Government’s Grenfell Tower Inquiry into the 2017 fire that killed 72 people, the U.K. government is now demanding that cladding and insulation companies, including Kingspan, help remedy the cladding crisis by agreeing by early March to contribute a “significant portion” of an estimated £9 billion in remediation costs. Otherwise, the government says it will use its “regulatory framework to limit any culpable company from operating and selling products in this country...” Other estimates put the remediation costs as high as £50 billion.

In December 2021, the UK National Regulator for Construction Products issued “prohibition notices” for Kingspan’s Kooltherm K15 product manufactured after August 1, 2021 “to prevent supply and require the recall of certain non-compliant K15 insulation board.” K15 used in the U.S. is produced in the U.K., but the impact of the recall on the U.S. market is unclear.

A new website, KingspanOnFire.org, was launched in January to build awareness in the United States about issues with the company’s fire testing, certification and marketing from 2006 to 2020 in the U.K. Kingspan began marketing K15 in the United States in 2018.

"We think it's important to educate the industry, elected officials and others in the United States about these shortcomings,” said Meredith Schafer, a researcher at the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART), “and for regulators and elected officials to find out whether any of issues that came to light in the United Kingdom occurred in the United States.”

In one example indicated by evidence and testimony in the inquiry, until October 2020, Kingspan continued to use a 2005 large-scale fire test to market K15 in the U.K., despite the fact that it had introduced a new, more combustible, version of K15 in 2006. Kingspan managers were aware of fire test issues and inappropriate marketing of the insulation, but for years Kingspan issued misleading marketing literature and advice to use K15 in configurations for which it was never tested, and in some cases, for which it had failed tests.

Kingspan’s response — that it played no role in the design of Grenfell’s cladding system, and that, without its knowledge, a small percentage of K15 was used there — sidesteps the many revelations from the inquiry.

From the public record, it appears U.K. government officials conducting the inquiry have not asked the Kingspan representatives about the extent to which the problems they are examining could implicate other products. From Grenfell Tower Inquiry testimony in November 2020 by Ivor Meredith, Kingspan’s technical director in charge of large-scale fire testing:

Meredith: ...we are stretching the truth here and we are going into an area ... where we cannot support the performance of the product.

Inquiry: It’s right, isn’t it, that this was a deliberate and calculated deceit by Kingspan in which you had become embroiled?”

Meredith: Yes, that’s correct.

Inquiry: And it was part of an overarching strategy to achieve the best possible sales of the product by every means available; that’s right, isn’t it?

Meredith: And that’s the strategy adopted for all the products, really. That is that everything that can possibly be done is done to achieve sales.

Read SMART’s letter to U.S. shareholders with key questions for Kingspan management about safety concerns, potential costs, headline risk and lack of an independent board.

Visit KingspanOnFire.org to read the full report and learn more about recent developments, such as Mercedes ending its partnership with Kingspan after one week in December 2021, and the call for architects and elected officials to investigate Kingspan’s record in the United States.