Knauf Drywall celebrates with 'Green' month

It’s out with the grey and in with the green as Knauf Drywall celebrates ongoing success in reducing its impact on the environment. To mark its achievements to date, Knauf Drywall is backing its entire output of Wallboard and high performance plasterboard with a vivid green paper for a month.
Among its latest environmental initiatives, Knauf Drywall successfully trialled a delivery of plasterboard by barge – potentially saving thousands of road miles – from its Sittingbourne factory up the Thames to the River Lea, the future waterway to the Olympic park at Stratford. And the company has just announced an industry first with its carbon neutral plasterboard, Futurepanel. A 10kg/m2 board ideally suited for Part E applications, Futurepanel can be used anywhere in place of standard Wallboard.
Commercial Director Ian Stokes says: “We believe that reducing our impact on the environment is simply the right thing to do. We are very proud of our progress, and are changing the backing paper colour for a celebratory ‘green’ month. The colour change has no effect on the performance of our products.”
Products will continue to be identified by their traditional face colours.
Ian Stokes says all Knauf Drywall plasterboard is made from the most environmentally sustainable sources of gypsum currently available, and 100% recycled paper liners. “We are also increasingly recycling plasterboard, collected through our gypsum waste recycling service, to use in our production. Futurepanel, for example, has at least 10% recycled gypsum in its core. All the waste from our manufacturing process is recycled,” he says.
“We have already saved 10% of the energy used at our Immingham factory with a massive heat exchanger, and have installed new energy management software to optimise energy usage at Immingham and Sittingbourne. We are seeking planning permission for a 2MW wind turbine, to generate up to 40% of our electricity requirements at Sittingbourne,” he says. “And we are working with the Carbon Trust to set carbon reduction targets and find innovative ways to meet them.”
Knauf Drywall’s environmental initiatives are listed in detail at www.knaufdrywall.co.uk/environment
Knauf Drywall manufactures a full range of plasters, plasterboards, insulating laminates, drywall accessories, metal sections and steel building systems, for domestic and commercial applications, from factories at Sittingbourne in Kent and Immingham on Humberside.

Email: david@clockworkmarketing.co.uk