11th March 2025 | IN EXPERT INSIGHT | BY SBID Share Tweet Pinterest LinkedIn Lucy Black, Head of Business Development at Kenoteq, has given her insights into the industry. Kenoteq has been established to bring positive environmental impact to interior and architectural projects, disrupting the status quo of traditional brick production and bringing a more modern and sustainable material to the fore – with a contemporary edge and wide colour choice. Kenoteq’s award-winning K-Briqs and K-Slips are made from near 100% recycled construction and demolition waste and are unfired and made to a low energy production process ensuring an end product that is ultra-low carbon, durable and 100% recyclable at its end of life. K-BRIQ Medero Dark Grey K-BRIQ Gillespie Magenta What are the origins of the brand? Kenoteq started life in Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh, developing into a research spin-out project with Scottish waste management company, Hamilton Waste & Recycling. Heriot Watt University was carrying out research into circular economy applications for construction and demolition waste and Hamilton Waste & Recycling were looking for new applications for their recycled gypsum from waste plasterboard and so a company was born in 2019. It has taken another 5 years to raise investment, set up a commercial scale production facility and push through product, quality and environmental certifications, but 2005 will see Kenoteq roll out the manufacture of 3 million low carbon K-Briqs and K-Slips, thereby breathing new life into 6,600 tonnes of recycled construction and demolition materials and saving them from landfill. These 3 million products will provide 50,000 m2 of coverage for interiors and facades – as well as saving 1,365 tonnes of carbon emission equivalent (CO2e) compared to if traditional bricks or brickslips had been manufactured! Photography: Katerina Antos-Lewis How do your products and services enhance interior design projects? The products not only look striking, but they also have a really interesting circular economy story to lend to a project – and can help educate those living, working or using the space that regenerative and sustainable materials are the future, leaving our earth’s finite raw materials intact, saving materials from landfill, reducing our carbon footprint significantly – and they can be recycled at their end of life! The K-Briq and K-Slip are coloured using recycled pigments and so choosing from a wide colour palette of 12 certified colours means they can lend either a traditional, contemporary or vibrant edge to a project depending on the colours chosen. Our Pure Black, Medero Dark Grey and Medero Light Grey can look very bold and contemporary, whist our Chapman Burnt Oranges and Watt Browns can help bring a warmer, more traditional feel to a project. And then there are our more striking colours – Heriot Mustard & Mustard Light, Gullane Cyan and Cyan Light and Gillespie Magenta and Magenta Light that ooze personality whether used individually or together for walling, features, furniture or surfaces. Our brickslips are naturally a popular choice over bricks for interior designers to preserve floorspace and have a lighter solution to work with. We’ve developed our range of brickslips this year so not only do we offer a brick-faced slip in each colour, but we also have a cut-faced slip in each colour. The cut-faced slips have a terrazzo feel, beautifully exposing fragments of the bound recycled materials – and exposing more of this history of the product. Photography: Josh Linnemann What value does your specialist sector add to the industry? Locally made, low carbon materials and those grounded in the circular economy are key to the industry reducing its environmental impact and carbon footprint. The certified inert waste materials used in Kenoteq’s K-Briqs and K-Slips are all currently sourced in the UK but are readily available worldwide, meaning that as we scale and grow, we can set-up production facilities on a regional basis internationally, providing a solution to the local construction and demolition waste piles and providing locally manufactured products for local projects. This will not only reduce the transportation and importation of heavy materials, but it will also support local supply chains and create local jobs all whilst providing beautifully aesthetic low carbon materials for interiors and the wider built environment. K-BRIQ Gullane Cyan K-SLIP Gullane Cyan Light How do you work with interior designers? We are currently delivering CPD sessions on a personal or virtual basis to interior design and architectural practices to share our story and product range. And we are also working with clients who believe in our ethos and want to introduce us to their designers to look for demonstrator projects for these new products. We’ve also been very fortunate to win a number of awards over the last few years that have raised awareness of our brand and made us some fantastic connections. It’s great when the interior designers seek us out! We won the Dezeen Awards in 2022 for Sustainable Design winning both the global public vote and the judges’ votes. We’ve recently completed an interior project for Europe’s largest retailer, the Schwarz Group, for some interior walls in their flagship sustainability hypermarket store and were delighted that Skidmore Owings Merrill (SOM) included us as a key material in a flagship COP28 Pavilion in Dubai for Dubai Holding who own the Jumeirah Group and large scale hotel, leisure and real estate. The Pavilion has since been deconstructed and rebuilt again as a legacy feature in Dubai Holdings’ HQ. On a collaborative level, the team have good experience and can advise on Whole Life Carbon accounting and also, for every project we supply, we also provide key storytelling data in terms of how much recycled material is within each project and how much carbon has been saved compared to using traditional fired brick products. We try to bring that alive for each particular project. For example, a recent counter project for Gail’s Bakery saved the carbon equivalent of boiling the water for 100,000 cups of coffee just through the selection of the recycled low carbon K-Briq over a traditional brick! K-BRIQ Gullane Cyan What has been your most significant company highlight or success from the past year? Finally completing our product certification testing for the material allows us to confidently provide all the technical specification data that interior designers and architects are looking for from compressive strength and durability (both high!) to fire ratings. Our Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) will also be published very soon to provide verified environmental and carbon data. Moving into our launch phase and supplying into early adopter projects has been a key highlight, from domestic interiors, to museums and galleries to flagship stores like Kaufland – it is great after our long journey to see the products finally being used in a multitude of applications and making an environmental statement. Photography: Josh Linnemann What are the latest trends you’ve noticed in your client’s requests? Within interiors, it is our Medero Dark Grey and Gullane Cyan and Cyan Light that are seeing the most project interest – and we can see that too in our page visits on our website. The Medero Dark Grey is striking and contemporary and brings smokey tones to projects. The Gullane Cyan and Cyan Light bring teal and turquoise tones to a project and can look very sharp and fresh teamed with light mortars. Some designers want to bring their own mark to projects with the development of bespoke colours and that is a service we can offer whether it is to colour match in a refurbishment project or match a brand colour, or just evoke the right tone and mood for the wider project palette. K-BRIQ Gullane Cyan How do you see the interior design industry evolving in the year ahead? There is definitely increasing awareness amongst the interior design community of the environmental importance of material selection, and the impact that material choice can have on both the project’s carbon footprint both at delivery and its end of life and deconstruction. Initiatives such as Interior Designer Declares adds additional weight to the movement within the sector, inspiring, educating, collaborating and campaigning for a more sustainable future. This movement across the sector will continue to grow and gain pace in the year ahead. K-SLIP - Medero Light Grey and Cut-Face Light Grey Is there anything new you are excited to be working on? 2025 and 2026 are the years where you will see the K-Briq and K-Slip in their myriad of colours appearing in more and more projects from our pipeline. We have two great theatre projects in the pipeline which we can’t wait to share. What does being an SBID Accredited Industry Partner mean to you? As a young business, it is important to gain verification and be acknowledged as a player in an established industry. The SBID provide good information, platforms, access to networks and event opportunities that help Kenoteq make the right connections and create strong brand, product and project awareness and we will look forward to using the services more extensively this year. Lucy Black, Head of Business Development at Kenoteq About Kenoteq Design without compromise! Kenoteq is a pioneering UK company at the forefront of sustainable materials made from recycled waste. The newly launched first products are the revolutionary low carbon K-BRIQ® and K-SLIP™ currently the world’s most sustainable bricks and brickslips, unfired, made from 95% recycled construction and demolition materials together with recycled pigments, and are 100% recyclable. They are suitable for interior or exterior use and offer a wide colour palette. With a technical specification akin to traditional bricks and brickslips, the products benefit from a carbon footprint 95% less than their traditional equivalents. Visit Profile If you’d like to feature your news or stories on SBID.org, get in touch to find out more. If you’d like to become SBID Accredited, click here for more information.