How sustainable is basalt as a facade material?

An important aspect of sustainability is how we all are dealing with the valuable resources the earth gives us. The availability of basalt, the raw material that we use to produce our facade boards, is virtually infinite, as the earth creates thousands of times more every year than we can use. Because of this high availability, it’s a responsible choice for now and in the future.

The idea of creating stone wool from basalt was fostered in Hawaii, where natural volcanic activity created the first stone wool from basalt. Nowadays, the basalt that we use to produce Rockpanel facade cladding is mined in Germany. This location is close to our production site, limiting our CO2 footprint.

Rockpanel and the ROCKWOOL Group are committed to running their business on ethically and environmentally-sound principles. Every supplier for Rockpanel and the ROCKWOOL Group needs to meet our high standards, and sustainability and the environment are important aspects here. To secure this, all our suppliers have to accept the ROCKWOOL Supplier Code of Conduct. We regularly evaluate how they are doing and re-assess our suppliers based on that. *Source

It is of course a demand from us that all necessary permissions are in place for the supplier to mine the basalt. 

And when it comes to all our other suppliers, e.g. paint, coatings etc – they are all located in Europe (one supplier in each of these countries: Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and France) which minimizes our footprint from transport.

Read more about our approach to raw materials and recycled content in our sustainability report from the ROCKWOOL group.

Source

_{Sustainability Report ROCKWOOL Group 2021}

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