profile
Neil Hargreaves
Neil Hargreaves is Managing Director for Knauf Insulation Northern Europe (KINE), which includes the markets across the UK & Ireland, Scandinavia and English-speaking countries in Africa.
Neil originally joined KINE in 2006 as Head of Commercial Finance before leaving to become Finance Director (EMEA) for a multi-national manufacturing and contracting business. In 2011, he re-joined KINE as Finance Director and has since played a key role in a number of commercial, financial and strategic projects. He was appointed Managing Director in February 2019.
Prior to joining KINE, Neil trained as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG and gained experience in audit, business consulting and transaction services working with clients across manufacturing, construction and leisure industries.
Neil sits on the board for the Mineral Wool Insulation Manufacturers Association (MIMA).
Knauf Insulation
Knauf Insulation is the UK’s leading manufacturer of glass and rock mineral wool insulation products.
As part of the family owned Knauf Group, Knauf Insulation represents one of the most respected and progressive names in insulation. It offers an unrivalled range of insulation solutions for any application or project to meet the increasing demand for energy efficiency, fire resistance, thermal and acoustic performance in new and existing homes, non-residential buildings and industrial applications.
In the UK, the company operates at three manufacturing plants; Cwmbran, Queensferry and St. Helens.
Visit www.knaufinsulation.co.uk. Follow @KnaufUK
Launched in 2015, the award winning monthly Builders Merchant Building Index (BMBI) report is the only reliable measure of repair, maintenance & improvement (RMI) activity in the UK. Filling an important gap, it can be widely used in construction, and by economists, Government, national media, commentators and influencers outside the industry.
Knauf-Insulation Comment: Q3 2025
For most of this year, analysts have predicted an uptick in construction activity. The fundamentals are solid, and the political will is there. But reality hasn’t yet met those expectations.
Now the industry holds its breath, awaiting the impact of planning reforms, the Future Homes Standard, and November’s budget. The hope is for a policy landscape that gets the nation building, and building more sustainably.
In some ways, it’s easier to forecast further into the future. As climate scientists say, we can predict the long-term trend with more certainty than next week’s weather.
With climate in mind, there’s one trend we can confidently pick out for construction. Embodied carbon is rising up the agenda.
Embodied carbon is now responsible for around half of the total carbon cost of a building, so it’s inevitable the UK will follow the lead of other countries in setting building carbon limits. But construction isn’t waiting to be forced to act.
Whether it’s developers aiming to meet voluntary building standards, customers seeking to reduce their scope 3 emissions, or contractors responding to homeowner requests, we’re seeing increased demand for lower-carbon solutions now. Embodied carbon is becoming part of the performance criteria construction products are judged on.
That creates opportunities for merchants, who can respond to this new demand by ensuring they have verified low-carbon solutions within their product portfolio.
For some product types, that will require embracing new materials. But for insulation, low-carbon options are already readily available.
In the UK, glass mineral wool has the lowest carbon of any mainstream insulation material, driven by factors like sustainable raw material supply, its relative lower density, and compression packaging.
Rock mineral wool carbon levels are higher, but when our new factory in Shotton comes onstream with its electric arc melting technology, it will add 105,000 tonnes of low-carbon products to the UK market.
Much-needed capacity to meet the forecast demand for low-carbon solutions.