Royal Agricultural Society of England highlights the K-BRIQ in reducing carbon emissions within the agrifood supply chain
Is it time to rethink farm buildings?
The Royal Agricultural Society of England’s latest ‘Farm of the Future’ report explores how the latest farm building design can help reduce carbon emissions across the agrifood supply chain, improve energy efficiency and support animal performance.
With contributions from across the agricultural industry, the report examines practical opportunities to reduce the carbon intensity of production across:
• Pig, poultry and cattle housing
• Grain drying systems
• Root vegetable storage
The report highlight’s Kenoteq’s K-BRIQ® in its discussions around how the choice of materials offers a means of reducing agriculture’s overall carbon footprint, whether building a new farm building or upgrading an existing one. It points out that, for most farms, this is not about radical redesign. It is about practical substitutions and better specification: the K-BRIQ® is just that, it is a plug-and-play replacement for traditional bricks, avoiding kiln firing and using around one tenth of the energy of fired clay production.
The K-BRIQ® forms the plinthwork of a large steel agricultural shed at JH Hamilton & Sons in East Lothian, thereby reducing the carbon emissions associated with the brickwork element by over 95%. The 50m² K-BRIQ® plinthwork also houses 6.3 tonnes of locally recycled construction & demolition waste.
Farm owner, Haig Hamilton Jr says, “JH Hamilton & Sons specified the K-BRIQ’s® for the base course around the new industrial units at our farm due to their low carbon and circular economy credentials as well as their aesthetic quality that suited our units well. They have fared well ever since being installed in 2020. We love the sustainability credentials of the product and how they required nothing different to lay nor a change to the construction programme. A fantastic product, coming at the right time for farming sustainability targets in the UK.”
Holly Shearman, head of livestock and Farm of the Future programmes at RASE, says farm buildings should be viewed as long-term investments in emissions reduction and resource efficiencies.
“Farm buildings are often overlooked in net zero discussions, yet they can deliver lasting emissions reductions across every agricultural sector,” she says. “This impact is driven by the construction materials used and operational energy use across a building’s lifetime.”
BHC Builders’ Merchants in South Lanarkshire are now representing the K-BRIQ. Parent company, BHC, also specialises in the design and build of agricultural buildings, having supplied them across the UK since the early 1990s.
Read the RASE ‘Farm of the Future’ report here.
Read the K-BRIQ case study at JH Hamilton & Sons here.
