SIG BUILDING SOLUTIONS: Guiding You On Your Solar Journey

SIG Building Solutions offers a wealth of products and solutions, commensurate with the breadth of its talent and expertise. A wide range of Zed, Cee and Eaves Beam sections and accessories are manufactured to customer requirements, while its single skin steel cladding is suitable for a wide range of buildings and situations, from warehousing and industrial applications to agricultural and home outbuilding uses.

 Furthermore, twin skin steel cladding roof and wall systems offer rapid coverage and swift completion of a weatherproof building envelope, to produce a high-performance building, and insulated composite panels are self-supporting making them ideal for building roofing and cladding. 

 SIG Building Solutions also manufactures bespoke architectural fabrications and flashings in aluminium, steel and other metals to specific designs, as well as a comprehensive range of accessories and components such as rooflights, gutters and flashings to furnish any building with its finishing touches. “Fabrications are not limited to use in building and construction only,” the company clarifies, “if it can be fabricated from metal, we can make it.”

 NIMBLE DIVISION

 SIG Building Solutions resides within the Specialist Markets Division of SIG plc, who are the leading supplier of specialist insulation, roofing materials and sustainable building products to customers across Europe known for its expertise, quality service and reliability.

 A group of specialist distribution businesses, SIG works in partnership with the construction industry via an extensive branch network of over 440 sites across seven European countries – in the UK alone, SIG has well in excess of 3,000 employees and close to 200 trading sites.

 Inspired, rather than overshadowed, by its association with the major multinational, it is clear that SIG Building Solutions is a relatively unique part of the wider group, playing to their manufacturing strengths and working within their own clear identity and philosophies. “SIG Building Solutions combines the powerhouse capabilities of SIG with a relationship-driven, solutions- focused dynamic,” is how Guy Chilvers, Business Development Manager for Solar Canopy Structures, best describes the relationship.

 “We are a single-point communication solution, removing complexity for customers while increasing efficiency and adding value.”

 What SIG Building Solutions offers is a bespoke service, with decades of manufacturing experience and expertise, backed by the robust supply chain and extensive capabilities of a major PLC with 6,700 employees across 425 sites, Chilvers unpacks.

 “One of the great things about SIG Building Solutions is that it does exactly what the name suggests,” he says. “We actually manufacture, in-house, and we have access to three factories within this division, the main one of which is in Carlisle and which we use to make all of the structures.

 “We represent a nimble little group within a much bigger PLC, and we really pride ourselves on that; we are very close to our customers, and ultimately we like to think of ourselves as incredible flexible,” adds Samantha Jones, Commercial Development Director. “The fact that our products are both designed and manufactured in the UK is also huge, as are our rapid response times compared to those of our competitors.

 “Even the site at which we produce our solar canopies has over 100 years’ experience of manufacturing products into the construction sector,” Jones continues. “These products then lend themselves perfectly to their solar applications, and it is to these solutions that we are dedicating much of our thinking and investment at present.”

 SOLAR SOLUTIONS

 As countries around the world plan to ban the sale of fossil-fuelled vehicles in the years to come, and reductions in carbon emissions used around the Paris Agreement become ever-more pressing, the development by SIG Building Solutions of its Solar Canopy Support Structures starts to look more intuitive and adept by the day.

 “As the construction industry responds to the climate emergency and rising energy costs, we are accelerating our own response and partnering with suppliers to ensure sustainability is at the forefront of our industry,” Jones states. “Using our Solar Canopy Support Structures will help improve the sustainability of any organisation and, in turn, build a better planet for everyone.

 “Using our insight and specialist know-how, we are supporting our customers and manufacturers to make tangible steps towards a greener future.”

 Jones and Chilvers jointly bring a vast amount of experience in their respective sectors, we learn, crucial to SIG Building Solutions’ ability to bring this offering to market. “Guy joining our team last year is what has made the difference for us,” Jones opines. “Of course, we have always had the manufacturing capability, but Guy has brought the experience and industry knowledge – and contacts – to enable us to bring this offering to market.

 “My background is in traditional construction, I have worked in and around the industry for 25 years; Guy, supported by our trusted supply partners and design team, are the ones who bring the experience in this particular sector.”

 Maximising routes to market is high on the agenda for SIG Building Solutions at the current moment, Jones explains, and finding ways to link in with the SIG businesses throughout Europe, which is partially exciting when it comes to solar. “You only have to look at France, for example, where a new ruling stipulates that all car parks must henceforth have these canopies,” Chilvers informs, “and I have already priced up hundreds of thousands of car parking spaces for big automotive groups.

 “Through SIG we already have subsidiaries in France, as well as in the likes of Poland and Germany, and our cold-rolled steel sections lend themselves well to being manufactured here in the UK and despatched throughout Europe. Currently there are companies in Spain and Denmark sending canopies to the UK; there is no reason why we cannot expand into Europe.”

 Solar car parks are going to be one of the main drivers for SIG Building Solutions moving forward, Jones opines, with the move to electric mobility necessitating infrastructure for EV chargers around the world to keep customers and employees on the move. “Generally, when putting up these canopies, clients are thinking in terms of EV charge points underneath them,” she details. “That entails digging up the carpark, putting trenches and plinths, and then adding barriers.

 “What we have done is to integrate what we call an EVB,” Jones resolves. “With this solution a steel beam runs across the underside of the canopy, onto which the EV charge point is mounted, and then all the cabling is housed within the canopy. The initial feedback that we have had has been resoundingly positive, and this is something that nobody else has ever offered.

 “Utilising the new customer-facing SIG Building Solutions brand has opened up so many new sectors for us,” adds Jones. “It has allowed us to take a really credible offer to market in a way that we never could before, and facilitates our being able to operate in ways that would until now have been beyond us.

 “Nothing embodies that more than the solar structures package solution, which brings together all of the elements in which we have excelled for so many years, and presents it in a fresh way to a new market.”