Header_Protecting our planet natural resources

Protecting our planet

Technical insulation is our contribution to mastering the challenge of global climate change. Our purpose is to make a difference in our industry by designing solutions that save energy, enhance safety and performance, as well as minimising noise and reducing vibrations. We strive to innovate and invest a great deal of effort to tackle megatrends such as urbanisation, energy efficiency and acoustic comfort. Armacell products and solutions make a significant contribution to reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions in a variety of applications. Many of these products help our customers to make a material contribution to climate protection through the products they manufacture. That is why our innovative thermal, acoustic and mechanical insulation solutions are also our strongest ESG differentiator.

Low-carbon economy

Low-carbon economy

Our transition to a low-carbon economy and efforts to reduce CO2 emissions are implemented in line with the Environmental Pillar of our World-Class Armacell Mindset (WAM) programme. We collect key performance indicators on energy use, CO2 emissions, water consumption and waste management. Armacell has reported on Scope 1 and Scope 2 CO2 emissions for years and started assessing Scope 3 emissions in 2021. Scope 1 refers to the direct emissions from our own manufacturing operations. Scope 2 refers to indirect emissions from the generation of purchased energy. The applied fuel types are converted into CO2 equivalents through the conversion factors for global warming potential (GWP) published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Assessing Scope 3 emissions helps us better understand how our activities further impact our value chain. We provide more details on our work to support a lower carbon economy in our annual sustainability report

natural resources

Preserving natural resources

Saving resources and enhancing energy efficiency are among the environmental objectives Armacell pursues in the evolution of its production sites and methods. We are committed to continuous improvement processes to reduce negative environmental impacts. At all our production sites, we are undertaking a number of measures to achieve our goals of reducing production-related water and energy consumption and increasing the use of electricity generated from renewable sources. Our commitment to protect the environment and preserve planetary resources is also reflected in our Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) policy. Armacell’s environmental and energy management systems are regularly audited by external authorities. 14 of our plants have management systems certified to the international environmental management standard ISO 14001.

Greenguard

Meeting regulatory requirements

All our products are assessed for health, safety, environmental and social impact considerations. Where applicable, both the raw materials used and the products themselves are regularly analysed and evaluated to ensure that there are no declarable components above the respective threshold values. Armacell products use verifiably registered and approved substances and mixtures and fully comply with the European Union’s REACH regulation to protect human health and the environment. Most of Armacell’s insulation products in the USA, e.g. ArmaFlex® or ArmaLightTM Tubolit, are GREENGUARD Gold Certified. This standard is designed to define low-emitting materials suitable for environments where people, and in particular children and sensitive adults, spend extended periods of time, e.g. in schools or healthcare facilities. GREENGUARD certified products are screened for more than 10,000 volatile organic compounds.

Destination - Residential Building

Environmental Product Declarations

Armacell was the first manufacturer of flexible technical insulation materials to carry out comprehensive life cycle assessments (LCAs). Based on these, we publish environmental product declarations (EPDs) certified by Institut Bauen und Umwelt (IBU). Through this “sustainability passport” for construction products, we support the green building trend and have committed to a high level of product transparency. Our EPDs demonstrate the environmental friendliness of Armacell products and give customers transparent insights into all stages of a product’s life cycle, including analysis of the raw materials used, resources consumed, packaging, transportation, disposal and waste data. Armacell’s commitment to quality enhances its products’ sustainability and safety while its production, product performance, materials and technology innovations are driving responsible resource use. For example, assuming a service life of 20 years for cold applications and/or 30 years for hot applications, 140 times more energy is saved in an ArmaFlex® product lifetime than is required to manufacture it. While offering the highest fire standard in flexible insulation, ArmaFlex Ultima’s insulation performance is almost entirely maintained over its long service life and only limited, practically speaking, by the service life of the equipment or building where it is installed.

Circular Economy

Towards a circular economy

Armacell essentially has two levers that enable and support our path to a circular economy. On the one hand, we are increasing the recycling volume of our production-related waste and, at the same time, further expanding the use of recycled PET (rPET) for our new products. Through initiatives such as recovering wastewater or implementing a pallet return policy for customers, we avoid generating waste at our own production sites, reduce negative waste impacts, and support the circular economy in our upstream value chain. Thanks to solutions that use recycled PET flakes, our manufacturing process generates 37% fewer CO2 emissions than other comparable materials. To date, Armacell’s rPET facilities have re-used more than 2.5 billion PET bottles. As another way of contributing to higher recycling rates beyond our own output, we are sharing our patented process technology. By granting licenses to other PET foam producers in the composite industry we are helping to drive and accelerate adoption rates in their manufacturing processes. Opening our unique technology to others ramps up Armacell’s contribution to a greener tomorrow.