Join us in calling on the green building community to stop partnering with Kingspan.

Many green building organizations partner with Kingspan. For example, trade groups invite the company to sponsor trade shows, speak at conferences, and teach workshops. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a “collaboration partner” with the company, and has offered continuing education credits taught by Kingspan, including on fire safety issues. The US Green Building Council, which develops LEED standards and works to influence building code revisions, features Kingspan as a Gold member on its website, and allows the company to use the USGBC logo in their materials. These groups confer status on Kingspan and allow it to market its products to their members and attendees. Recently, over 40 national and local environmental organizations signed the call below to the green building community to stop partnering with Kingspan.
The green building community should reconsider partnerships with Kingspan for the following reasons:

  • Kingspan has misrepresented its environmental clean-up efforts to CalEPA under the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board regarding its Santa Ana facility. Stormwater at this facility indirectly discharges into the San Diego Creek and Santa Ana Delhi Channel, an impaired watershed. Santa Ana is a majority people of color community, and the Kingspan factory directly abuts a residential neighborhood. Kingspan workers filed a whistleblower complaint to CalEPA, and you can read the full whistleblower complaint and view the documentation.
  • Kingspan’s Santa Ana factory workers documented unhealthy levels of indoor air pollution and other unsafe working conditions. You can read the workers’ full complaint to CalOSHA as well as Dr. Shahir Masri’s air monitoring study of the facility.
  • Kingspan is not an appropriate source for continuing education courses or sponsorships of events for the green building community, including those that touch on fire safety. The UK Government Inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire show how the company misrepresented and mis-marketed its K15 insulation product’s fire safety over many years. This Inquiry is still ongoing, and Kingspan is a core participant. Read more on this topic at KingspanOnFire.org

The green building community should stop partnering with Kingspan.

We call on the green building community—including the AIA, specifiers, the US Green Building Council, and trade associations—to reconsider partnerships with Kingspan Group, a global manufacturer of building materials that markets its products as “green.” Trade groups should not offer continuing education courses taught by Kingspan and should not have Kingspan sponsor or speak at trade shows and conferences until changes are made to the Santa Ana factory, and the Grenfell Tower Fire Inquiry is completed.
We call on those who deal with Kingspan to reconsider rewarding it for behavior that weakens the credibility of the green building community, and that goes against the values of safe and sustainable buildings and communities.

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