With its expansive array of applications, ranging from consumer goods, construction, through to cutting-edge technologies and manufacturing processes, the ceramic industry is at the forefront of developing high-value and innovative solutions that improve quality of life whilst enabling crucial progress in downstream sectors [10,11]. Indeed, products from the sector play a significant and very often indispensable function in realising energy and resource efficiency in other sectors. By facilitating energy and resource efficiency in all these allied sectors, ceramics play a vital role in the society. In the UK, for example, the sector yielded over four million tonnes of a wide range of products in 2012, whilst contributing a direct value of £1 billion equivalent to its economy [10].