The Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team and Kingspan have announced that they have mutually agreed to end their partnership following the controversy surrounding the Grenfell Tower fire and subsequent investigation.
Last week, the Mercedes team of Formula 1 announced that it had reached a sponsorship deal with Kingspan, an Ireland-based building materials company that is involved in an investigation related to the Grenfell Tower fire in which 79 people died
The new association included Kingspan as chair of a new Sustainability Working Group for the team, and aimed to deliver carbon reduction plans through environmentally sustainable cutting-edge solutions for the team’s future campus.
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However, both parties have subsequently concluded that it is inappropriate for the partnership to move forward at the present time, despite its anticipated positive impact, and therefore it has been agreed that it will be suspended with immediate effect.
For his part, Kingspan has declared to be “Deeply aware of the sensitivities raised in recent days, so we have jointly agreed that it is not appropriate to move forward at the present time”.
“Much has been written about this in recent days, and out of consideration for our clients and the great people who work for us, we believe that we must respond:
- We had no role in the remodeling of the Grenfell Tower. However, our Kingspan Insulation UK business is a major participant in the Grenfell Tower investigation and fully supports the important work of the investigation.
- We did not do the exterior cladding of the Grenfell Tower. The investigation itself has stated that “the main reason” for the rapid spread of the fire in Grenfell was the ACM with a polyethylene core, the cladding used on the exterior of the building. No façade system using this PE ACM cladding, regardless of the insulation used, would have passed the full-scale system fire test. Our K15 insulation board was misused in this unsafe and unsupported system.
- We do not supply or recommend K15 to Grenfell Tower. K15 constituted approximately 5% of the insulation layer of the façade system. It was replaced without our knowledge.
- We sincerely apologize for these actions by a small group of Kingspan Insulation UK employees. This in no way reflects the culture or values of Kingspan. ‘