Architect George Clarke calls for boycott of firms criticised by Grenfell inquiry

Grenfell United and the TV architect George Clarke are calling on businesses and homeowners to take a “moral decision” and boycott the companies criticised in the Grenfell inquiry for “systematic dishonesty”.
Clarke, best known for his series George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces, said he had made the decision not to use products from Arconic, Kingspan and Celotex, three companies that were heavily criticised in the findings of the Grenfell inquiry published last year and who have continued to deny wrongdoing.
“I have personally made the moral decision to not use any of those companies’ products in any of my projects,” he said. “I’ve also reached out to all the consultants and companies I work with, people I’ve associated with as friends and in the profession to say: ‘Please don’t use them.’
“We can all sit around and wait for criminal proceedings to happen, and we need to do that. We’ve got to follow due process. But the inquiry proved those companies were dishonest, so people have to make their own moral judgment.”
He lives close to the tower block in west London where 72 people were killed by the 2017 blaze which was fuelled by combustible insulation and cladding that did not comply with regulations.
Ed Daffarn from Grenfell United, who was a resident of the tower block and predicted the disaster on his blog, said: “I would call on any architect, designer, procurement manager in construction or the housing sector, any landlord who’s got to meet the energy performance certificates, or even if you’re just insulating your loft – do not use these companies.”
All three companies were found by the public inquiry to have behaved with “systematic dishonesty” and “engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing processes, misrepresent test data and mislead the market”.
Arconic, which made the plastic-filled cladding panels that were the main cause of the fire’s spread, “deliberately and dishonestly concealed from the market the true position” of the product it sold for use on Grenfell in relation to the way it reacted to fire.
Kingspan, which made about 5% of the combustible foam insulation on the block, was found to have acted with “deeply entrenched and persistent dishonesty […] in pursuit of commercial gain coupled with a complete disregard for fire safety”.
Celotex, which made most of the combustible foam insulation, was found to have “embarked on a dishonest scheme to mislead its customers and the wider market”.
All three deny any wrongdoing.
They were among seven organisations to face possible debarment from public contracts after the government accepted all recommendations of the inquiry, before the process was paused “to prevent any impact on criminal investigations”.
The Met police have said it is unlikely any charges relating to its investigation will be announced until late 2026 – almost a decade after the fatal blaze – at the earliest.
Clarke said that the three companies he was boycotting were so big in the construction industry they had become “the default suppliers”, but that there were plenty of alternative insulation and cladding companies out there.
He added that he found it “staggering” that many in the construction industry still were not fully aware of which companies were implicated and how.
“Even after all of those deaths, after all the publicity, after the damning inquiry, the acknowledgment by government, it still amazes me that in the industry, people have gone, let’s just carry on. Morally, I find that really unacceptable. I couldn’t live with it, and I’m surprised that other companies do,” he said.
In its latest accounts, Kingspan Insulation posted a pre-tax profit of £14.7m, and all the companies have continued to make yearly profits of millions of pounds in the years since the fatal blaze.
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re building a huge government project, whether you’re refurbishing a tower block, or whether you’re doing a small-scale extension on the back of your house, don’t use their products,” Clarke said.
A spokesperson for Arconic said the company “was a core participant in the public inquiry into the fire and fully supports efforts to better regulate the UK construction industry and improve safety. We have fully engaged in and cooperated with all the legal processes following the tragedy, and will continue to do so.”
Kingspan has previously said it “has long acknowledged the wholly unacceptable historical failings that occurred in part of our UK insulation business” and that it has “emphatically addressed these issues”.
Celotex previously said it had “reviewed and improved process controls, quality management and the approach to marketing within the Celotex business to meet industry best practice”.

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