Joe Wild guest speaker at Bath University

I gave a lecture at Bath University yesterday to the architecture MSc students studying sustainability, Tom Woolley was leading the module and he wanted to introduce the students to real live commercial activity in low impact building materials. The inevitable question of transport came up where concerns were raised about shipping wood fibre and other products in from Europe. We debated the need to increase the volume of sales in the UK to justify local manufacture, but obviously it’s still a small market compared with other parts of Europe.

There are some good news stories, wool insulation has been made in the UK for many years. Hemp insulation is now manufactured in the UK where as only a year ago we could only get imports. NBT are hopefully launching, at some point in the new year, a UK manufactured version of the internal Thermoplan clay blocks. There are other UK manufacturers developing products and the low impact materials market will grow but volumes are key, as commercial pressures drive the markets whether we like it or not.