Grenfell Tower fire [image credit: BBC]
Insulation added to buildings like the ill-fated Grenfell Tower was a result of climate regulations, as this extract from a Sky News report shows. But the manufacturers themselves helped write those rules, and now some critics who tried to point out potential fire hazards in the materials say they were subjected to intimidation by them.
H/T Damian
While legal threats were being made in private, the plastic insulation industry was openly advertising its role in writing the rules that govern the fitting of its products to millions of buildings across the country.
The main lobby group for the plastic insulation trade was, until November 2017, called the British Rigid Urethane Foam Manufacturers’ Association [BRUFMA].
Partly in response to Grenfell Tower – or what it refers to as “events of this year” – BRUFMA changed its name to the Insulation Manufacturers Association.
They advertise that they are “influencing UK and local government, specifying authorities, relevant approval and certification bodies,” and have “high level involvement in the drafting and regular revision of British and European standards [and] the Building Regulations.” Its members are promised the “opportunity to influence Government bodies and NGOs” and “direct input into relevant British Standards committees.”
How that influence works in practice is exposed by examination of government efforts to meet the UK’s climate change commitments. Since the Kyoto agreement in 1997 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, successive governments have created rules about how new and refurbished buildings must be insulated to reduce heat loss.
In 2011 the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) turned to the insulation industry for help, inviting representatives onto a Green Deal committee to come up with ways to push more insulation into homes. We discovered that of the 10 firms and construction industry groups on that committee, four were members of BRUFMA.
One of them was Celotex, the firm whose plastic insulation would be fitted to the outside of Grenfell Tower four years later.
Full report: Grenfell: Plastic firms helped write safety rules | Sky News
Tallbloke's Talkshop 
I’m struggling to understand the problem here. Do we want regulations made without consultation with industries? That would be absurd, for all sorts of reasons. And the implication seems to be that these firms knew Grenfell was going to happen and that they somehow knew that their advice would lead to deaths, but went ahead anyway – is there any evidence whatsoever for that?
[reply] some smaller fires had already happened
Why would you not ask the people who will make the stuff for their opinion on how best to sue the stuff?
[reply] opinion, OK – total reliance, no
It’s simple- just follow the money…
[reply] indeed
Phoenix – did you read the full report?
Simon Hay who sat alongside Celotex and the other insulation firms on the DECC committee says he doesn’t recall fire being mentioned in any of the meetings.
. . .
Niall Rowan from the Passive Fire Protection Association told us: “Due to the green agenda we’ve had a push to insulate buildings and the easiest and cheapest way to insulate was using these combustible materials […] our eye was off the ball.”
. . .
Perhaps most puzzling of all, DCLG has refused to let us read 54 submissions they received in a 2010 consultation into how the fire safety rules needed to change. When we used the Freedom of Information Act to try to read them our application was refused on the grounds that releasing them was “not in the public interest.”
. . .
Throughout all the changes to the energy-saving Part L of the building regulations – three major revisions since 2010 – and the lack of changes to the fire safety Part B – none in the past 12 years – the Government has relied on fire safety advice from a group which also makes money from the plastics industry. [bold added]
And on and on…plus the lawsuit threats and bullying.
Time after time we were told the plastic insulation industry was highly litigious.
The government looks naive now, to say the least.
Btw why does Sky call them ‘safety’ rules? Insulation is not for the purpose of safety AFAIK.
Matt Ridley – scandal…
Reblogged this on WeatherAction News and commented:
Disgraceful. It was never class warfare as seems to be a narrative being pushed but pure greed as ever. The “green” revolution has proved a boon for snake oil sellers, schmucks and shysters from all walks. We will be mired in the clean up operation for a long, long time.
Reblogged this on Wolsten and commented:
Interesting
Green policies kill.
And it is a feature, not a bug.