A Borders sustainable insulation company has become the first UK company manufacturing industrial hemp insulation to achieve a full agrément certificate from the British Board of Agrément (BBA).
The achievement means that IndiNature’s innovative and sustainable insulation products can now be used by the housing and construction sectors at scale for both new build and retrofit projects.
BBA agrément certificates are a valuable and trustworthy symbol of excellence, recognised in the industry as a differentiating mark of product quality and suitability for meeting UK building regulations.
The company was established in 2016 to make healthy, environmentally friendly, sustainable insulation materials on a commercial scale. Indinature has built its first cutting edge IndiNature Mill in the Scottish Borders to produce the insulation materials to help decarbonise construction.
The industrial hemp is Yorkshires’ finest, sourced from East Yorkshire Hemp, leading UK farmers who are licenced by the UK Government to grow the crop. Hemp was a traditional crop in the UK and is farmed extensively around Europe. IndiNature aims to help re-grow the local supply chain for industrial hemp over the coming years and is working closely with farmers close to its base in Scotland.
Ensuring industrial hemp is more available as insulation is the brainchild of co-founder and chief technical officer Scott Simpson, who when studying sustainable architecture at the Centre for Alternative Technology carried out lab-based research into natural insulation materials and found they had many performance advantages over conventional materials. He used his family home as a case study; rebuilding and extending it using the best natural materials available.
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