Kingspan’s partnership with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team has been ended.
The deal was announced last week, but has been culled following criticism from senior UK politicians and the families of victims and survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire.
The partnership involved Cavan-based Kingspan becoming the chair of Mercedes-AMG Petronas' new Sustainability Working Group.
However, families of victims and survivors of the Grenfell Tower tragedy said they were "shattered" by the partnership.
Meanwhile, UK Minister Michael Gove said he was "deeply disappointed" that the F1 team accepted “sponsorship from cladding firm Kingspan while the Grenfell Inquiry is ongoing".
The Grenfell Tower Inquiry was created to examine the circumstances leading up to and surrounding the fire at Grenfell Tower on the night of 14 June 2017, which killed 72 people.
In a statement today, Kingspan said it “saw a unique opportunity to bring... sustainability to a world stage”
However, the statement added that Kingspan is “deeply aware of the sensitivities raised in recent days, and so have jointly agreed that it’s not appropriate to move forward at the current point in time”.
Kingspan says it had “no role in the Grenfell Tower refurbishment” and “fully supports the Inquiry’s important work”.
Kingspan says it “did not make the exterior cladding on Grenfell Tower” and that the company “did not supply or recommend” its K15 insulation board to Grenfell Tower.
The Cavan-based company says the K15 product “made up approximately 5% of the insulation layer of the façade system” and was “substituted without our knowledge”.
Kingspan added that it “condemn(s) in the strongest possible terms the wholly unacceptable historical conduct and emails which emerged throughout the course of the Inquiry discovery process”.
In a series of private messages, a former Kingspan employee said “all we do is lie in here”, and in an internal email, a former Kingspan Technical Manager said he would “sue” a contractor who inquired about fire safety concerns regarding Kingspan products.
Kingspan says it has “sincerely apologised for these actions by a small group of employees at our Kingspan Insulation UK business,” adding that “this in no way reflects Kingspan’s culture or values”.
