Sustainability Journey: 2024 Highlights

2024 was a year of important progress for Knauf Insulation. We accelerated the decarbonisation of our company, introduced new circular economy initiatives, achieved safety and engagement landmarks and intensified our campaigns to create an energy efficient built environment.

Sustainability is a journey of continuous improvement — and we have a great deal to do — but we are proud of what we accomplished in 2024. Every sustainability success takes us another step closer to achieving our For A Better World commitments to Put People First, Achieve Zero Carbon, Deliver a Circular Economy and Create Better Buildings.

Our Key Achievements in 2024

"2024 was defined by wide-ranging initiatives to put in place the foundations for Knauf Insulation’s future sustainability success.

We launched new plants in Romania and North America both featuring state-of-the-art energy efficient technology and acquired a new electric Rock Mineral Wool plant in Uzbekistan.

We advanced the decarbonisation of our company and products by starting the electrification of our European Rock Mineral Wool plants and initiated company-wide energy saving refurbishments.

These milestone investments will futureproof our business and enable us to create low carbon solutions that contribute to a better world by saving energy and reducing emissions.

In increasingly complex times, it is a privilege to drive forward such a clearly defined purpose with Knauf Insulation.” - Dominique Bossan | Knauf Insulation CEO for Europe, Middle East and Asia, Member of the Knauf Group Management Committee

Foundations for Tomorrow

“Reflecting our decarbonisation achievements, we strengthened our carbon roadmap in 2024 through independent third-party audits and achieved a management level B-rating from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP).

The rating reflects our commitment to responsible carbon management. CDP is one of the best-known rating systems and our B rating is a significant improvement on the D we achieved four years ago.

I am also delighted that 44% of our colleagues took part in Climate Fresk workshops across 40 locations in the EMEA region in 2024. The workshops provide science-based understanding of climate change and offer practical insight into making a sustainable difference.

These sessions, along with continuous improvements by our sustainability managers and our dedication to robust and transparent data collection, continuously reinforce our commitment to embed sustainability in everything we do.” - Marc Bosmans | Group Sustainability Director

Put People First

Caring for colleagues and communities

Our biggest commitment to sustainability is to put safety first and 2024 was an important year. We achieved our Total Recordable Incident Rate safety target of <5.0. In 2024 our TRIR was 3.9 compared to 5.2 in 2023.

A record 90% of employees (3,679) completed our engagement survey in 2024 and the percentage of engaged employees rose to 41% — up from 29% in 2020 — putting us on track to achieve our 2025 target of 42.5%.

In addition, our colleagues drove impressive community campaigns worldwide and we continued to build on the success of our well-being programmes and Diversity Equity and Inclusion initiatives.

Achieve Zero Carbon

A year of focus

While 2024 brought challenges, including a 5.7% rise in combined Scope 1 and 2 emissions due to plant start-ups, rebuilds and market complexity, we invested in important long-term solutions.

We enhanced energy efficiencies, procured better raw material substitution, increased lower carbon energy supplies and started work on a new electric line in Croatia. We expect these initiatives to pay significant decarbonisation dividends from 2025.

Despite the year-on-year increase, our combined Scope 1 and 2 emissions are down 15% against our 2021 baseline putting us on track to achieve our 2032 ambition to reduce the emissions by 50%.

Meanwhile, our 2024 Scope 3 emissions were down by 6.4% compared to 2021. Our 2032 target for Scope 3 is a 30% reduction.

DELIVER A CIRCULAR ECONOMY

Zero waste challenges

Our circular economy initiatives were advanced with the launch of a new facility in Australia with the capacity to recycle 40 million used bottles into the batch material we need for Malaysia plant.

Unfortunately, our waste to landfill increased by 13.3% compared to our 2021 baseline. This was mainly due to several plants operating below optimal capacity leading to higher waste volumes and a slowdown in industries that normally use our recycled materials.

To tackle these issues, we continued to strengthen our network of recycling partners, develop new ways to recycle our production waste and in 2024 four of our plants achieved zero waste to landfill.

CREATE BETTER BUILDINGS

Driving change for energy-efficient buildings

In 2024, we stepped up efforts to help EU Member States tackle energy-draining buildings by leveraging the revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive.

We also supported research demonstrating that increasing annual renovation rates beyond 2% could reshape Europe’s energy system, saving €312 billion every year and cutting peak demand by 49%.

In addition, we launched a new solar flat roof range, marked 15 years of our bio-based ECOSE® binder and intensified our Knauf Energy Solutions work to help housing providers unlock energy savings and cut emissions using our AI-powered solutions.

Read our Annual Report 2024

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