Knauf Insulation releases 2024 Sustainability Report
10th July 2024
Knauf Insulation are proud to announce the release of it's 2024 sustainability report — Sustainability Journey: 2024 Highlights.
The report highlights a significant year of progress across the company’s four key pillars of its ‘For A Better World’ strategy— Put People First, Achieve Zero Carbon, Deliver a Circular Economy and Create Better Buildings.
Dominique Bossan, Knauf Insulation CEO for Europe, Middle East and Asia and Member of the Knauf Group Management Committee, said: “This report is a powerful reminder that our work to create energy efficient, low carbon buildings is more vital than ever, not only for our business but for a better world. It is a privilege to drive forward such a clearly defined purpose.”
Key achievements in 2024
Put People First
Knauf Insulation reported a Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) of 3.9, meeting its 2025 safety target of remaining below 5.0. The company also achieved a record 90% participation rate in its employee engagement survey, with the proportion of engaged employees rising to 41%, up from 29% in 2020. This progress brings Knauf Insulation close to its 2025 goal of 42.5%.
Achieve Zero Carbon
The company launched two new state-of-the-art energy efficient plants in Romania and North America and expanded its operations through the acquisition of a new Rock Mineral Wool plant in Uzbekistan. Knauf Insulation also began electrifying its European Rock Mineral Wool plants, intensified company-wide energy efficient refurbishments and increased lower carbon energy supplies.
Complex market conditions saw 2024’s combined Scope 1 and 2 emissions increase by 5.7% compared to 2023 while year-on-year Scope 3 emissions were down by 5.4%.
The company remains on track to achieve its 2032 target of reducing combined Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 50% compared to its 2021 baseline, recording a reduction of 15%. Knauf Insulation’s 2032 Scope 3 target is a reduction of 30% compared to 2021. In 2024, it was 6.4% down against baseline.
Marc Bosmans, Knauf Insulation’s Group Sustainability Director, said: “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, offer practical insight into making a difference and reinforce our commitment to embed sustainability in everything we do.”
Deliver a circular economy
In 2024, Knauf Insulation launched a new facility in Australia with the capacity to recycle 40 million used bottles into the batch material needed to provide the batch material for its plant in Malaysia. Unfortunately, the company’s waste to landfill increased by 13.3% compared to the company’s 2021 baseline due to difficult market conditions.
Addressing this challenge, Knauf Insulation is constantly working to improve the optimisation of production processes and the development of new recycling routes. In 2024, four of the company’s plants in Europe achieved zero waste to landfill.
Create Better Buildings
In 2024, Knauf Insulation launched a new range of solar flat roof solutions, celebrated 15 years of its bio-based ECOSE® binder and accelerated the work of Knauf Energy Solutions which uses AI-powered solutions to support the decarbonisation of building stock. In addition, the company’s Public Affairs teams stepped up advocacy campaigns across EU Member States, leveraging the revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive to tackle energy inefficient buildings.
Sustainability Journey: 2024 Highlights is available to download here.