Bianca Wong
Chief Sustainability, Digital and Marketing Officer, Kingspan
A focus on reducing embodied carbon in construction has become a strategic issue — one that must be thought through as early as possible in the design process.
There’s an uncomfortable truth about the buildings and construction sector that must be faced, where manufacturing companies have a major part to play, says Bianca Wong, Chief Sustainability, Digital and Marketing Officer, Kingspan Group.
Much of the sector’s impact has traditionally been associated with operational carbon, generated once a building is in use. However, a significant share sits in embodied carbon — the emissions produced through the extraction and manufacturing of materials, their transportation, construction, and ultimately, decommissioning.
“Architects and designers understand they play a critical role in determining the lifetime carbon footprint of a building,” says Wong. “Their design decisions and materials choices fundamentally influence the performance and environmental footprint.” As a result, a focus on reducing the lifetime carbon impact of buildings is becoming a strategic priority, one that must be thought about as early as possible in the design process.
Manufacturers have a key role to play. Wong points to Kingspan’s own progress on its environmental sustainability programme, Planet Passionate, and how it’s helping its customers do this in practice. “Our goal is to continually reduce the environmental impact of our products to help our customers to create high performance, lower carbon buildings’ she says.
“To achieve this, we’re focused on increasing our use of recycled and renewable raw materials and decarbonising our manufacturing processes at scale,” Wong explains. To date, Kingspan has reduced direct emissions from its operations by 70% since 2020, including acquisitions and organic growth.
Alongside this, the company continues to invest in product innovation. These include its integrated building envelope solutions and its lower embodied carbon (LEC) product range. “Designing the walls, roof and daylighting together as one high-performance system can lower both operational and embodied carbon, explains Wong. “A system-level approach is where you unlock the best outcomes — both in sustainability and in performance.”
we want to create high-performance products with low environmental
impact to help our customers build better buildings
Building sustainability into your operational model
Wong believes the opportunity for the wider sector is clear: treating sustainability as a source of competitive advantage, not simply a compliance requirement. “Businesses need to be clear on where the material opportunities are and how they can create value, both for the business and for their customers,” she says.
Achieving this requires more than ambition alone. It requires strong leadership commitment, clear strategic focus and embedding sustainability into the operating model. “To get real traction, you need leadership buy-in, you need to integrate sustainable practices into how the business operates, and you need people who are passionate about delivering it,” she adds.
“If you only treat sustainability as a box-ticking exercise, it won’t add value,” says Wong. “We always think of it as the golden thread to the product. We ask, ‘How can we continually improve our products and help solve our customers’ pain points?’ and then work back from there,” she says.
The future of manufacturing
For Wong, the future of manufacturing is lower carbon, more efficient, more circular and performance-led. “For us, it’s about innovative product design, optimising our raw materials and getting as close as we can to net-zero manufacturing,” she says.
“We have our lower carbon suite of solutions, and we’re exploring circular business models with multiple product take-back schemes and recycling schemes already in place. Ultimately, we want to create high-performance products with low environmental impact to help our customers build better buildings.”
