Introducing Walki®WICO2: the low-carbon insulation facing

High-quality insulation facings are essential if you are looking for low-carbon materials for buildings. Walki recently launched Walki®WICO2, a facing that can reduce the carbon footprint by more than 50% compared to the market average.

With EU’s 2050 Green Deal Carbon Neutrality Targets, construction companies are under pressure to minimise carbon emissions of buildings. It’s no easy task as construction projects usually gobble up a large amount of steel and cement, which are both big emission emitters. And then you need facings, that usually contain aluminium owing to its unique features.

“Aluminium is combining several interesting properties providing a positive impact on gas barrier, fire resistance and dimensional stability. It’s very difficult to find another material that could offer all those features. Aluminium typically has a high emission intensity, but there are still ways to minimise its carbon footprint,” explains Olivier Lucas, Business Line Manager at Walki.

Long-lasting insulation facing with low carbon footprint

Walki’s R&D, sustainability and sourcing teams joined forces to find ways to tweak certain parameters to reduce the facings’ carbon footprint without compromising functionality. The result is Walki®WICO2, a long-lasting insulation facing that meets the highest functional standards while having an exceptionally low carbon footprint.
“Walki®WICO2 can reduce the carbon footprint more than 50% compared to the market average, from 800 gCO2e /m2 to 360 gCO2e /m2”, says Lucas.

Walki worked closely with raw materials suppliers to find the optimal combination using the highest quality raw materials with the lowest possible carbon footprint. The testing of various low-carbon materials for the new product was done at Walki’s highly energy-efficient Valkeakoski plant, further adding to low carbon emissions.

“We have made a facing that offers an exceptionally low embodied carbon while still maintaining all the functional features that you expect from a high-quality facing,” says Lucas, adding that even small tweaks in the raw material can make a big difference when accounting for emissions during the whole life cycle of a building.