To conduct this study, Kingspan engaged global construction and asset management consultancy Currie & Brown. The firm applied standard construction cost estimating methodologies, leveraging historical data of actual projects to identify warehouse and light manufacturing buildings around 150,000 sf GFA, which had used IMP walls, insulated precast concrete or tilt-up concrete walls. Costs were normalized based on material costs for Quarter 2, 2021 and local labor rates were applied across the 18 different locations.

The comparison study revealed that the installed costs of Kingspan QuadCore® IMP wall systems were on average 25% lower in the United States and 27% lower in Canada compared to insulated precast and tilt-up concrete walls. The potential cost savings ranged from averages of 18% to 32% depending on location, with the variation being largely driven by differences in local labor costs.

The results demonstrate that reducing embodied carbon in buildings does not have to cost more. In fact, using Kingspan QuadCore® IMPs instead of concrete wall assemblies could save on both construction costs and embodied carbon.