‘A carefully planned, carefully concealed and long-running deception’ - what the Grenfell Tower Inquiry report said about Kingspan
Our latest digest of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry report findings details the key conclusions about insulation manufacturer Kingspan
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Who is Kingspan, and what is its connection to Grenfell?
Kingspan, headquartered in Ireland, is a publicly-listed company which sells insulation globally. Its most recent financial statements show revenues of €4.2bn and a trading profit of €422m for the six month period to June 2024.
A small amount of the firm’s K15 insulation was used behind the cladding panels on the tower. It made up a very small percentage of the insulation (which was mostly Celotex RS5000), and the insulation has been found to have been largely insignificant in the spread of fire, which was propagated by the polyethylene inside Arconic’s cladding panels.
So from a purely causative perspective, there is little to say about Kingspan with relation to Grenfell.
However, the inquiry’s interest in the firm - which amounted to days of evidence and a large chunk of Volume 2 in its final report - comes from its broader role in creating market conditions where combustible materials were used frequently on high rise buildings.
Or, in the words of the report: “Although [K15] was not used on the building in any quantity, the way in which it was tested and marketed created conditions that encouraged unethical practices in the supply of insulation for use on high-rise buildings.”
The report built to the conclusion that the firm was engaged in “deeply entrenched and persistent dishonesty… in pursuit of commercial gain coupled with a complete disregard for fire safety” in the years before and immediately after the Grenfell Tower fire.
Let’s dig into the detail.
‘The foundation of the fundamental falsehood at the heart of [its] marketing strategy in the years that followed’
Kingspan had been marketing K15 for use in cladding systems from the early 2000s, without any qualification in its marketing materials that the rules in place at the time restricted its use to buildings below 18m.
This appears to have led to some confusion over the rules, with Kingspan’s staff acknowledging in emails even at this early stage that “it had been accepted regularly for use on buildings over 18 metres in height” despite the rules.
But from 2005, Kingspan began targeting over 18m buildings explicitly. This was enabled by a change in the rules which allowed systems containing combustible materials to be used on high rises, so long as they had passed a “large-scale test”.
The introduction of this testing route into official guidance was “encouraged and celebrated” by Kingspan, and became “the foundation of the fundamental falsehood at the heart of [its] marketing strategy in the years that followed”, in the words of the report.
This was because the test never justified the use of a single combustible product on tall buildings. Instead, it justified the use of an entire tested system potentially containing some combustible elements. But Kingspan’s marketing would blur this line.
In May 2005, as part of a strategy devised by “a group of managers and directors” at the firm, it ran a large-scale test using its K15 product behind a non-combustible cement-based board.
These boards were “not of a kind that would ever be installed in practice, either then or now”. Kingspan therefore had a test which justified K15’s use in a system which could not be practically installed. But it used the test to justify the product’s use on high rises in general.
After the success of this test, “Kingspan’s strategy was to go after every job”, the report said. Marketing literature suggested K15 was suitable for use on high rises, and its technical team wrote “letters of suitability” ensuring clients that the combustible insulation was suitable for their projects.
“False claims about K15 were not being made in error or by rogue junior employees but with the knowing approval of a senior manager,” the report said, in reference to a more senior member of the team, Philip Heath, signing off on some of the claims.
‘That was not the result of a mistake… or misunderstanding; it was done deliberately’
The situation was further complicated by the fact that Kingspan had changed K15 in 2006 after its acquisition of a Dutch company. A different blowing agent was adopted, and perforations were added to the product’s foil facer.
But the material used in the system tested in 2005 was the old-style material, not this new product.
“The K15 product that Kingspan sold after September 2006, although still a phenolic foam, was without question a different product from that which it had previously been selling,” the report said.
“For many years Kingspan marketed and sold K15 relying heavily on tests which had been carried out on a different product. That was not the result of a mistake… or misunderstanding; it was done deliberately.”
When Kingspan ran four tests on other systems including the new K15 technology in 2007 and 2008, all of them failed.
Internal notes on one test described it as “a raging inferno”. It was terminated early due to concerns that the laboratory might be set on fire. The notes said the new product had burnt ferociously “on its own steam” and that it was “... very different in a fire situation to the previous technology”.
Members of Kingspan’s team did not explain that the product had changed, even to other divisions of their own business, instead offering explanations that were “not simply vague but actively designed to conceal and mislead”.
Kingspan’s marketing literature also made much of the fact that its insulation was ‘Class 0’ rated for fire safety. Although this was not relevant to its use on the external walls of high-rise buildings, it helped persuade the market that it was a low-risk product from a fire safety perspective.
But this result - which is primarily concerned with the spread of flame over the surface of a product - was obtained through the testing of the foil facer alone, not when it was attached to the foam insulation, a practice which one of its own team members described as “a bit of a cheat” in internal messages.
In its closing statement, Kingspan said this means of testing was “a legitimate practice on the basis of the wording of Approved Document B [official guidance on fire safety regulations]”. “We disagree. In our view such an interpretation of Approved Document B is over-literal, artificial and has at least the potential to lead to absurd results,” the inquiry panel said.
‘A keen awareness on Kingspan’s part that it needed to find a way out of the situation it had created through its own mendacity’
Kingspan was - by this stage - struggling to get further test results to justify its claims that the product was suitable for use on high rises.
But in 2008, it was able to obtain a certificate from the British Board of Agrement (BBA), a trusted third-party certifier, which helped convince the market that its product was suitable.
This included a statement that the material “will not contribute to the development stages of a fire or present a smoke or toxic hazard”, a statement which no one from the BBA or Kingspan could explain.
The report said the BBA “did no more than recycle Kingspan’s own false marketing literature”.
The certificate encouraged buyers to contact Kingspan to discuss the suitability of the product for buildings above 18m, which the report said was “of substantial benefit to Kingspan”.
“When potential customers sought its advice, Kingspan almost invariably advised them that K15 was suitable for such use… When doing so, it referred them to the BBA certificate, which directed them straight back to itself.” the report said.
These claims were sometimes challenged by the industry. In one instance, a consultancy raised questions about whether it could be used, with Mr Heath writing in an email that “[the consultancy] can go f*ck themselves, and if they are not careful we’ll sue the a*se of [sic] them”.
“We think, despite his denials, that [these emails] expose a casual disregard for public safety at a senior level in Kingspan, a determination to defend K15’s position in the market at all costs and a keen awareness on Kingspan’s part that it needed to find a way out of the situation it had created through its own mendacity,” the report said.
The firm went on to gain a further certificate from Local Authority Building Control (LABC) in 2009, which went further than the BBA certificate in saying that the material “could be considered a material of limited combustibility” and could be used on high rises without restriction.
This was variously described as “GOLD”, “FANBLOODYTASTIC” and “GREAT NEWS!” in internal emails by Mr Heath, who boasted that he had confused the LABC official who wrote the certificate by sending so much data we “probably blocked his server” and convincing him K15 was the “best thing since sliced bread” without even having “to get any real ale down him”.
“Once the certificate had been obtained, the strategy was to send it out to customers and let it do the talking,” the report said.
A double falsehood
In the mid-2010s, Kingspan came under pressure from the National House Building Council [NHBC], a private firm which both signs off new buildings as compliant with regulations and provides warranties to new buyers.
NHBC had been receiving warnings that K15 was being used on tall buildings without necessary justification, and had asked Kingspan to produce additional testing to justify its claims that it was suitable - eventually setting an ultimatum that if it did not provide additional evidence, it would stop accepting it.
A series of tests was carried out. But once more, it was not on the product being sent to market, but a prototype of a new material. When one such test failed, Kingspan still used it to support the use of its insulation on high rises, which the report described as “a double falsehood”.
Finally, in July 2014, a system containing the prototype product passed a test, which Kingspan advertised internally and externally without revealing that the product used was different to the one on the market.
“Kingspan’s reliance after July 2014 on a test carried out using a development product was part of a carefully planned, carefully concealed and long-running deception,” the report said - concluding that certain senior members of its team were aware of the use of a prototype product, despite their denials when they gave evidence.
What has Kingspan said?
Kingspan’s statement regarding the report is available here. It emphasises that the type of insulation used on the tower was “immaterial” to the spread of the blaze “and that the principal reason for the fire spread was the PE ACM cladding, which was not made by Kingspan”.
“Kingspan has long acknowledged the wholly unacceptable historical failings that occurred in part of our UK insulation business. These were in no way reflective of how we conduct ourselves as a Group, then or now. While deeply regrettable, they were not found to be causative of the tragedy,” the statement added.
“Kingspan has already emphatically addressed these issues, including the implementation of extensive and externally-verified measures to ensure our conduct and compliance standards are world leading.”
The firm has conducted further large-scale tests since the fire, which have passed, and says: “Kingspan has full confidence that K15 can be safely used in systems that have passed a [large-scale] test.”
This is part of a series of digests on the findings of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry report. Previous posts have covered:
RBKC and the TMO as client and building control
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This content is not behind a paywall, but since it takes time to create and upload each piece, do please consider becoming a paid subscriber (especially if this project is something that you value, and you have the means to do so), which is either billed monthly at £3.50 or annually at £35. A paid subscriber has full access to the back catalogue of posts.
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