Irish Examiner view: Kingspan takes a wrong turn

F1 is a gas-guzzling, high emissions, sport which pitches up with a huge retinue of followers and workers from caravanserai to caravanserai in the world’s rich countries. Picture: PA

In marketing, as in many other aspects of business, timing is everything. The decision by Kingspan, founded in Cavan, and one of our most successful companies, to sponsor Lewis Hamilton’s Formula One Mercedes-AMG Petronas team looks misguided on a number of counts.

At one level it opens the business, which is a world leader in insulation, to accusations of “greenwashing” given the proximity of this decision to the Cop 26 conference. 

F1 is a gas-guzzling, high emissions, sport which pitches up with a huge retinue of followers and workers from caravanserai to caravanserai in the world’s rich countries. This weekend in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where the Kingspan logo may make its debut; next weekend in Abu Dhabi.

Thrilling though it is to watch, it just doesn’t feel right, a little like that turbo-charged Porsche blistering past you at 200kph on the road from Dublin.

Aren’t we supposed to be thinking twice about environmentally damaging activities? And scaling them back? Precisely the reverse is happening with F1 whatever its well-paid advocates and leaders say about their desire to reach net zero carbon by 2030.

But there is a darker, and equally intractable, reason to doubt the wisdom of this initiative.

Kingspan are tangentially involved in the Grenfell Tower Inquiry which is continuing in London; some of its product was used in the combustible materials which led to the death of 72 people in June 2017. 

The views of members of the then management have been referenced in evidence and the company’s actions are described in unflattering terms in the text of a verbatim play which is currently being staged in Britain.

Most of the victims were from poor, or multi-ethnic, or disadvantaged backgrounds and Lewis Hamilton paid tribute to them in an Instagram post on last summer’s third anniversary:

“Today marks three years since the horrific Grenfell Tower fire in London. Remembering the 72 souls we lost and their loved ones, and everyone affected by this tragedy. #justiceforgrenfell.” 

The acceptance of the sponsorship has outraged the survivors’ group Grenfell United and they are pressurising Mercedes publicly to turn it over. 

British minister Michael Gove says: “The Grenfell community deserve better.” 

F1 is a sport involving, as it does, high octane fuels and 1,050-horsepower machines, in which fire is a regular feature. 

Whatever the merits of insulation and its contribution to global sustainability targets this association, at this time, appears to be tone deaf.