Kingspan denies corporate greenwashing in F1 'sponsorship and sustainability' deal
The Kingspan name will appear on the panels of Formula 1 car driven by Lewis Hamilton and on the cars of other Mercedes drivers starting from this weekend's Saudi Arabia grand prix. File Photo: AP/Darko Bandic
Kingspan has denied it’s involved in an extreme case of corporate greenwashing after the Irish maker of insulated building panels announced "a sponsorship and sustainability deal" that will include its name appearing on Formula 1 cars of the Mercedes AMG Petronas team from this weekend.
The Kingspan name will appear on the panels of Formula 1 car driven by Lewis Hamilton and on the cars of other Mercedes drivers starting from this weekend's Saudi Arabia grand prix, as an official team partner.
The Mercedes AMG team includes Petronas, the Malaysian oil giant. “Breaking new ground for Formula One, Kingspan will chair a Sustainability Working Group for Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1,” a London-based spokesman for Kingspan said.
“The working group’s remit will be to draw together expertise from diverse fields to contribute to the team’s objective of pioneering new approaches and technologies for emissions reduction in motorsport,” he said. But the spokesman strongly denied the deal involved an extreme case of corporate greenwashing.
“It is not a typical sponsorship deal because there is a lot of room for synergy and for technology overlap,” the spokesman said.
💬 "We are making good progress in transforming our company to operate more sustainably but the ability to share expertise, resources and inspiration with Kingspan will help accelerate change within our team and hopefully our sport"
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) December 1, 2021
- Toto on our new partnership with Kingspan 👏 pic.twitter.com/p34w6cx0lb
“When it comes to the built environment Kingspan is in the forefront of innovation of heating efficiency, water preservation and water conservation by building panels with more lightweight composite materials,” he said.
“When it comes to the innovative elements of finding efficiencies that take us closer to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) goals of 1.5 degrees and net zero, they very much are at the forefront of that when it comes to the built and construction sector,” the spokesman said.
Kingspan has its own sustainability programme for the construction industry, called Planet Passionate, he said.
Kingspan said: “The Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team has set a target of reducing CO2 emissions in its operations by 50% by 2022 and is working on ambitious targets to become net zero."
“The team’s high-tech chassis factory in Brackley, UK, already uses renewable energy to power all its operations, while its Brixworth technology centre in Northamptonshire produces more than half of its electricity using solar panels and an on-site CCHP plant,” the company said.
