Sustainability of building materials is becoming increasingly important for architects and specifiers. With our impact on the environment, both our emissions into the atmosphere and the effects on the areas around our clay pits and factories, always on our minds, we have been investing heavily in ways to further reduce our carbon footprint.  

Where possible, we reuse process waste materials  and utilise them in the manufacturing process.  For example, the excess  heat produced by our kilns  is recaptured for use in the drying process, ensuring  that all energy is employed  as efficiently as possible. We use grey water gathered from collection points around our factory to mix with our clay to keep our mains water consumption to an absolute minimum and we aim to meet our Energy Reduction Targets of 2% per annum up to 2010.  

Some brick types have a 20% recycled Content. These are created by crushing ‘Non First’ bricks and using the resulting ‘Brick Grog’ material, instead of natural sand. An extra bonus is that these bricks can be fired in a shorter cycle time, therefore ensuring that all energy is used as efficiently as possible. Old Colliery, Restoration Blend, Kingston Red and the Rumbled Brick Range contain this recycled material and these bricks now represent approximately 15% of our total sales. 

We also have progressive restoration plans in place for the areas around our clay pits, making it easier for the land to be used for another purpose in the future. We source most of our natural clay and sand from Coalisland, Killough and Carrickmore, keeping  our product miles to an absolute minimum.  

Our environmental management system,is accredited to ISO 14001:2004 and we have signed up  to the Climate Change Agreement, which requires us to meet annual targets  to reduce our energy consumption. The company will enter the EU Emissions Trading Scheme in 2008  and we are members of the ‘Valpak’ Obligated Packaging Compliance Scheme.