Our work
NorDan UK
How Frontier PR made NorDan UK an expert voice in sustainability in construction, reducing carbon and promoted higher building standards.
Housing
The Challenge
Raise awareness of NorDan UK’s innovative and high-performance timber windows and doors, particularly in fast-growing markets.
The Frontier PR Solution
Frontier PR made NorDan UK an expert voice in sustainability in construction, reducing carbon and promoting higher building standards, and promoted the benefits to all sectors, including social housing.
Who is NorDan UK?
High-performance timber windows and doors manufacturer NorDan UK is a business with the right solutions at the right time.
The Scandinavian founded company has a long history of producing ultra-low-carbon and long lasting products that exceed current and anticipated future UK building standards.
Traditionally the choice of high-specification buildings, the company is now winning business from a wider range of new-build and refurbishment projects, including social housing.
Architects, contractors and developers recognise that NorDan’s windows and doors offer a long term social, environmental and social return, and benefits that include heat and cost efficiency and reduced whole life carbon.
But how could NorDan tell this great story to a bigger audience?
How Frontier PR Helped
We created a PR and communications campaign to make NorDan an expert voice on the value of timber as a sustainable and plentiful building material, its growing use in the construction industry, and how it would help address issues such as the reduction of embodied carbon.
To provide context for the campaign, our PR activity leveraged NorDan’s existing “Window of Opportunity” campaign, designed to raise awareness of the environmental impact of carbon emissions and call for the construction and housing sector to work to reduce embodied and operational carbon.
NorDan also became a leading commentator on new UK standards, such as Passivhaus and the Government’s Future Homes Standard.
Frontier PR built a wide-ranging engagement programme, talking to NorDan clients and industry stakeholders, to find out why they were choosing NorDan products, often above cheaper less sustainable alternatives.
This included numerous housing associations, which have become NorDan’s biggest customers, a sign that landlords now recognise the whole life value of high-quality timber products that deliver a long term financial, environmental, and social return.
These news stories, endorsements and case studies, which also highlighted the environmental headwinds the sector is facing into, as well as an understanding of the regulatory challenges builders, developers and property owners are facing, became a strong part of Frontier’s media relations campaign and digital communications activity.
The Result
Frontier PR has secured around 80 pieces of media coverage in important trade and business media, combining compelling facts and expert opinions with the voices of NorDan customers, such as contractors, architects, developers and, crucially, big social landlords.
Frontier PR drove the development of NorDan UK’s 2023 CIBSE award winning Embodied Carbon entry, and in January 2024 created a roundtable discussion with industry leaders on the Government’s Future Homes Standards that put NorDan at the forefront of the debate.
A film of the roundtable drove a digital comms campaign taking the NorDan view of the Future Homes Standard to thousands of people across the UK.
What did NorDan say?
“Frontier’s background in housing and sustainability meant they understood our place in the market and what was driving growth for NorDan” says David Gillon, Senior Marketing Manager, NorDan UK.
“More importantly, this deep knowledge of us, the sector, the issues and the media meant they were able to create a campaign that not only raised awareness of NorDan, but also resonated with new and existing customers.”
David adds: “The thing that impressed me the most was the level of knowledge Frontier PR displayed when engaging with NorDan UK’s people and customers. They were able to talk as equals, building trust and quickly gained a reputation for delivering fantastic advocacy from the market - content that brought our story to life.
“If you need PR support that understands the built environment and the future of the Smart Cities and Smart Communities, I urge you to talk to Frontier PR.”
Outstanding Campaign Activity
PR activity included case study-driven media coverage featuring social housing leaders, including A2Dominion, Clarion Housing, ForViva, and many others.
Other examples of campaign successes: