Mark Gillespie is CEO of Aberdeenshire, Scotland-based Recycl8, a company that collaborates with the waste-to-energy and global construction industries to transform incinerator bottom ash aggregate (IBAA), often destined for landfill, into a sustainable component for concrete. He spoke to Guy Woodford about Recycl8’s current trading and future growth plans as a socially and environmentally conscious company committed to the circular economy and net zero goals.
A notable leader across the energy and renewables sectors, having held senior executive roles with several multinational blue-chip companies, Mark Gillespie has an enviable track record in heading teams and repositioning businesses to become market leaders on a trajectory for sustained future growth.
Having initially been one of several high-profile investors in Recycl8, founded in 2019 by Ian Skene, a man with over 30 years of experience in the waste management industry and a highly regarded authority on waste strategies, Gillespie became the company’s CEO in 2022. Since then, he has leveraged his vast leadership and commercial and operational experience to accelerate the use of Recycl8’s groundbreaking solution, the R8 Mix, in multiple industries, including construction and renewable energy.
“In my previous management roles, I worked for oil and gas organisations transitioning to renewable energy. I was involved in a business with Mike Wilson (now a fellow Recycl8 investor) focused on underwater cable-laying and trenching for offshore wind farms. After successfully selling that business, we had a real appetite to work with a business focused on circular economy and lower carbon solutions. Mike identified the Recycl8 opportunity in 2021, becoming the lead investor, and I quickly saw it as a good investment and a great way of becoming involved in a sustainable business.
“The first 12-18 months of Recycl8 were about environmental testing [of the R8 Mix]. After that, it was about business positioning and commercialisation, and that’s when I decided to come on board as CEO.”
According to Statista, a major business data market intelligence consultancy, global emissions from cement manufacture stood at 1.6 billion tonnes of CO₂ in 2022 – around 8% of annual planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions.
Gillespie says that while successive COP [Conference of the Parties] summits have seen delegates stressing the need to reduce CO₂ significantly and agreeing on cement’s high-emitter status, the world’s rising population and the need for new infrastructure to support it means that huge amounts of money will be spent on building works, utilise the planet’s limited resources, creating even greater cement-based CO₂ emissions unless cleaner and greener solutions, such as Recycl8’s, are used in construction works.
“We’ve had senior-level conversations with companies saying, “I wish you were here four years ago”. They say that, but no one was buying into this agenda like they are now. The change has been dramatic,” emphasises Gillespie.
Recycl8’s breakthrough R8 Mix solution repurposes incinerator bottom ash aggregate (IBAA) as a sustainable constituent part of the concrete mix as a high-performance admixture and binder, offering a lower-carbon concrete utilising the circular economy.
"Our R8 Mix gives life to materials that would otherwise be discarded, reducing the reliance on virgin quarried materials and has significantly lower embodied carbon than traditional mixes. We believe this is the future of construction," says Gillespie.
The Scottish company offers a win-win process: waste-to-energy facilities can avoid sending their ash to landfills, and concrete manufacturers can source a sustainable raw material that limits the use of virgin quarried materials and has a significantly lower embodied carbon than traditional mixes.
“We have aligned ourselves with various IBAA providers in Scotland and England. With the R8 quality assurance process, we ensure that the resulting IBAA meets our environmental criteria and is suitable for an R8 Mix industry application,” Gillespie explains. “We are not a disruptor to a client’s manufacturing process. They don’t have to do something different. They introduce the R8 Mix [to their concrete pour]. We have the UK patent for the R8 Mix and have others applied for Europe and beyond.”
In September 2023, Recycl8 completed the first industry pour of its R8 Mix concrete made with recycled materials in partnership with Breedon Group.
Comprising Recycl8's pioneering R8 Mix and blended cement and aggregate, the concrete was supplied to civil engineering and construction firm W M Donald for installation on a housing foundation on Barratt and David Wilson Homes' new Huntingtower development in Perth, Scotland.
"We are really pleased to be involved in this innovative project using Recycl8's sustainable R8 Mix concrete technology," said Craig Godsman, commercial manager at Breedon. "It aligns perfectly with our commitment to decarbonisation, with the provision of lower carbon solutions through our Breedon Balance range of products."
David Palmer, Barratt and David Wilson Homes managing director, added: "We are committed to sustainable construction and reducing our environmental impact. We are excited to see Recycl8's innovative low-carbon R8 Mix concrete used by Breedon on our new Huntingtower project in Perthshire as part of that commitment.”
Earlier this year, Recycl8 and Breedon Group partnered again for Recycl8’s first large-scale commercial project. Breedon supplied the pioneering R8 Mix concrete to civil engineering contractor Nicol of Skene for the installation of an industrial floor slab for international energy transition firm Aurora Energy Services’ new Operations and Training HQ in Inverness.
So, does Gillespie see a much bigger potential market for Recycl8’s R8 Mix? “There are 2.5 to 3 million tonnes of IBAA available annually in the UK, and the accessible amount is growing constantly. So far, we’ve worked with only tens of tonnes of IBAA.
“With more incinerator plants coming in the years ahead, we can access more IBAA and take it [the R8 Mix] far wider in the UK, Europe, and globally.”
Gillespie believes his firm’s innovative R8 Mix is a truly unique solution. “Others have tried to do what we’re doing and are still trying to do it. We’ve got our IBAA technology and our binder, which is patented. There is no silver bullet [on cement and concrete carbon reduction]. We offer part of a combined solution, like how Breedon uses R8 Mix with its Balance product range.”
Recycl8’s seven-strong team works with highly respected specialists from various industrial sectors and academia, including the University of Aberdeen and Aberdeen-based Robert Gordon University. The company also has good working relationships with SEPA (Scottish Environment Protection Agency), EA (Environmental Agency), and the Building Research Establishment (BRE). It has benefitted from Scottish Enterprise and Innovate UK investment.
A six-figure Low Carbon Manufacturing Challenge Fund (LCMCF) grant, awarded last year by Scottish Enterprise, enabled Recycl8 to recruit its first graduate engineer, Daniel Wisely.
“We’ve been working with Scottish Enterprise’s High Growth Ventures Team for three years. They’ve been of great support to Recycl8. We’ve received different funding awards, including for crucial independent market research,” says Gillespie. “Further funds from our investors have also backed up the LCMCF money. It’s one thing for investors to spend their money; when you introduce other organisations who spend money on your business, it’s market validation.”
Speaking to Aggregates Business in early January 2024, Gillespie says Recycl8 is preparing to work with building firms involved in marine and harbour defence projects. “Being linked with Breedon, which has outlets across the UK, others take notice and ask questions about what you offer.
“It’s also the case that the more large-scale applications you can do, the more data you generate and the greater understanding you gain of what your technology can do on a bigger scale. The media coverage we’re getting is also helping generate wider interest. Companies in the Middle East and Asia are contacting us, saying they’ve got applications we could help with. They’ve also got their own circular economy goals.”
Gillespie believes Recycl8’s R8 Mix would be ideal for building contractors needing large volumes of low-carbon concrete for offshore wind farm projects. “We’ve been in some of the conversations linked to these large projects due to start in five, six, seven years. The scale of the concrete required means you have to be talking to sustainability-minded suppliers now.
“I’ve never seen the offshore industry so connected back into the construction industry as it is right now. When I joined the oil and gas industry in the early 1990s, the industry had stopped making large gravity-based concrete jacket structures in the 1970s.
“Offshore wind farm developers are already committing to build floating wind turbines, some of which will be with floating concrete structures, weighing in the thousands of tonnes. The developers are focused on delivering their renewable energy with green products where possible.
“If we can get to the state where none of the produced IBAA has to go to landfill, what a great position that will put us in.”
Most major UK building materials suppliers have published net zero and carbon reduction plans in the last year or two, with their efforts to build an even more sustainability-minded product and services portfolio sometimes enhanced by acquisition. One example was Aggregate Industries' Q3 2023 acquisition of Kent, southeast England-headquartered OCL Regeneration, a leading provider of highway waste recycling solutions.
Would Recycl8 be open to being acquired by a UK industry major? “You have to be careful not to think too far ahead. Ian [Skene] saw an opportunity, and we, as investors, joined the journey. We are still focused on working with our strategic partners and developing our technology. We want to ensure that different sectors can embrace our solution as much as possible. We are here to do the right thing for the environment and want to be good ancestors.”
