Kenoteq K-BRIQ Earthshot Prize 2025 Nomination, Scottish cleantech pioneer construction industry product

Kenoteq K-BRIQ Earthshot Prize 2025 Nomination News

15 September 2025

Scottish cleantech pioneer Kenoteq nominated for prestigious £1 million Earthshot Prize 2025

Revolutionary recycled brick technology could transform global construction industry

Scottish cleantech building materials company Kenoteq has been nominated for the Earthshot Prize 2025, Prince William’s prestigious global environmental award that offers £1 million to groundbreaking solutions that address the world’s greatest environmental challenges.

Kenoteq’s nomination comes from two heavyweight supporters in the industry – global engineering consultancy Arup and the Royal Academy of Engineering, positioning Kenoteq among the world’s most promising environmental innovations competing for the Prize’s five £1 million awards.

The nomination recognises Kenoteq’s revolutionary K-BRIQ, one of the world’s most sustainable building bricks, made from nearly 100% recycled construction waste and recently certified by the British Board of Agrément (BBA), the UK’s leading construction certification body.

The unfired brick has a very low carbon footprint, producing around 95% less carbon emissions than clay bricks and represents a genuine circular economy solution by turning construction waste back into a primary building material – plus, the K-Briq can be recycled itself.

Founded by HRH Prince William in 2020, the Earthshot Prize awards £1 million annually to five winners working towards five critical environmental goals: Build a waste free world, Protect and restore nature, Fix our climate, Revive our oceans, and Clean our air. Over its first three years, the Prize has attracted over 3,000 nominations from 125 countries and supported 45 groundbreaking environmental solutions with £15 million in funding and over £50 million in additional catalysed investment.

K-BRIQ showcase at COP28:

photo : Askar Nymand

Patrick Woodcock, prize project manager at the Royal Academy of Engineering, said:

“We’re proud to have nominated Kenoteq- as one of 24 organisations championed by the Academy – for their bold solutions to global sustainability challenges for the 2025 Earthshot Prize. With the support of our Enterprise Hub, Kenoteq has grown to embody a company driving real environmental impact by turning construction waste into one of the world’s most sustainable building materials. We believe all our nominees have the innovation, creativity and ambition needed to tackle the climate crisis and we wish them all the best of luck.”

The K-BRIQ addresses significant environmental challenges facing the global construction industry. Construction, demolition and excavation waste accounts for approximately 60-65% of total waste generated in the UK, with more than a third of global landfill waste estimated to be of demolition and construction origin. Meanwhile, embodied carbon can account for over 50% of a building’s total carbon footprint.

In a standard two-bedroom UK house requiring 12,000 bricks, switching to K-BRIQs would slash carbon emissions from 5.46 tonnes to 0.2 tonnes of CO2e – the equivalent of taking a petrol-powered car off the road for an entire year. As Europe’s largest market for bricks, the UK uses around 2.5 billion bricks annually, creating enormous potential for environmental impact at scale.

The Subaru Cocoon garden at RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival:

photo : RHS

Sam Chapman, co-founder and executive director of Kenoteq, said:

“Being nominated for the Earthshot Prize is fantastic recognition for our team’s work in developing a truly transformative solution to construction’s environmental crisis. Unlike approaches that simply treat the symptoms of the industry’s environmental impact, the K-BRIQ addresses the root cause by utilising industry waste to deliver a product that performs exactly like clay bricks.

“The construction industry is under increasing pressure to reduce its environmental impact while maintaining high standards of quality and safety. Our nomination demonstrates that these goals are not mutually exclusive – we can build better while building greener. This global recognition will help us scale our impact and work towards a more sustainable future for construction.”

Kenoteq’s East Lothian facility near Edinburgh is currently able to produce two million bricks annually, with capacity to double production to four million as demand grows. The company has already secured dual international certification through the BBA and the prestigious DrJ Technical Evaluation Report (TER) for the United States market, with European certification underway.

Early adopter projects across the UK and Europe have showcased the K-BRIQ’s capabilities, including installations at Scotland’s National Retrofit Centre, Oaklands College in St Albans, a sustainability-blueprint hypermarket in Germany, and the fast-growing Gail’s Bakery chain.

The five 2025 Earthshot Prize winners will be announced at the awards ceremony on 5 November at the Museum of Tomorrow in Rio de Janeiro – the first time the Prize will be held in Latin America.

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Kenoteq K-BRIQ:

K-BRIQ

The K-BRIQ represents a genuine circular economy solution by turning waste back into a primary building material. Made from recycled plasterboard, brick, stone, rubble and old mortar, together with recycled pigments, the K-BRIQ addresses the significant waste challenge facing the construction industry.

The K-BRIQ underwent 16 rigorous tests during certification, exceeding the requirements typically demanded of traditional clay bricks. Because of its innovative composition and unfired production process, the K-BRIQ required a specially developed testing methodology that was more comprehensive than what is normally required for conventional construction materials. With all K-BRIQs now achieving the highest level of durability rating under BBA certification, the Medero Dark Grey K-BRIQ variant has achieved an A-class fire rating, allowing its use in buildings classed as the highest risk.

Unlike some approaches that focus on modifying production processes or energy sources for traditional materials, Kenoteq has taken a fundamentally different approach by directly addressing the cause of construction’s environmental impact rather than treating the symptoms.

The K-BRIQ was conceived following more than a decade of research into creating innovative, low-carbon products from recycled construction waste at Heriot-Watt University. Kenoteq spun out in 2019 to commercialise this technology.

Kenoteq

Kenoteq is a Scottish cleantech building materials company dedicated to developing sustainable building materials that address both the waste and carbon challenges of the construction industry. The company’s flagship product, the K-BRIQ, is made from close to 100% recycled construction and demolition waste materials and contains 95% less embodied carbon than traditional fired clay bricks.

The research and development of the K-BRIQ was supported by Built Environment Smarter Transformation (BE-ST), Zero Waste Scotland, Scottish Enterprise, and the Royal Academy of Engineering. The company is based in East Lothian, Scotland.

Kenoteq has received many prestigious awards, including the BE-ST Circular Economy Award 2023, Dezeen Award 2022 in Sustainable Design, VIBES Scottish Environmental Business Awards 2022 – Circular Scotland, and The Times Higher Award: STEM Research Project of the Year 2020.
www.kenoteq.com

Royal Academy of Engineering

The Royal Academy of Engineering creates and leads a community of outstanding experts and innovators to engineer better lives. As a charity and a Fellowship, we deliver public benefit from excellence in engineering and technology and convene leading businesspeople, entrepreneurs, innovators and academics across engineering and technology.

As a National Academy, we provide leadership for engineering and technology, and independent, expert advice to policymakers in the UK and beyond. Our work is enabled by funding from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, corporate and university partners, charitable trusts and foundations, and individual donors.

Earthshot Prize

The Earthshot Prize is a global environmental prize designed to discover, spotlight and scale groundbreaking solutions to the world’s greatest environmental challenges. Founded by HRH Prince William in 2020, the Prize awards £1 million annually to five winners working towards the five Earthshots. The 2025 Awards ceremony will be held on 5 November at the Museum of Tomorrow in Rio de Janeiro.

Kenoteq K-BRIQ Earthshot Prize 2025 Nomination images / information received 150925