With their enormous practical benefits, roof tiles are a sustainable roofing solution, creating minimal environmental damage through manufacture and offering the prospect of recycling and reuse at the end of their product life.

The ability to re-use a product lengthens its lifecycle and ensures the energy used during manufacture is spread over a longer time period, achieving greater efficiency. Roof tiles can be re-used simply by removing them from one building and transferring them to another, eliminating the energy consumption and cost associated with manufacturing a new product. Re-use of building materials like roof tiles commonly saves about 95 per cent of embodied energy that would otherwise be wasted.

The Bristile Roofing 50 year product warranty on concrete roof tiles states that roof tiles will not ‘‘crack, split or warp due to defective manufacturing, will not become porous or leak, and will not be damaged by coastal salt’’. Terracotta roof tiles are offered with a ‘‘Colour for Life’’ warranty meaning the colour of the tile is warranted for the life of the product. This is due to the high temperature of the firing process during manufacturing which effectively seals the product and locks in the colour.