Environmental sub-sector focus

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The Foresight environmental team invests in businesses operating in various sectors in the UK and Europe, including:

1. Food waste for energy generation and agriculture

Anaerobic and advanced aerobic digestion have an increasing role to play in recycling food waste to produce fertilizer and renewable energy. Source segregated food waste is collected by many councils and organisations and volumes collected are growing strongly, driven by escalating costs of disposal to landfill and to meet targets set by the government. Foresight has invested in advanced aerobic digestion through Vertal.

2. Plastics recycling

Over 600,000 thousand tonnes of waste plastic bottles alone enter the waste stream each year, much of which is sent to landfill, despite many forms of plastic being of high value and readily recyclable. Plastics are derived principally from finite oil resources, the price of which has increased over recent years. Foresight has direct experience of successfully investing in the plastic recycling sector through companies such as Closed Loop Recycling, 2K Manufacturing and i-plas.

Significant progress has been made in extracting plastics from municipal waste, with most UK councils now providing kerbside collection of plastics, alongside other dry recyclables such as paper. As recycling participation rates increase amongst households, retailers and other commercial organsations, there is growing demand for new capacity to recycle plastics in the UK.

3. Wood waste for renewable energy generation and animal bedding

Waste wood is a valuable resource which is being increasingly captured, recycled and used in a range of markets. The uses of waste wood are broadening beyond its traditional use in boarding products and uses now include renewable fuel and animal bedding, both commercially attractive markets for such products. Within these sectors Foresight has invested in O-Gen, Land Energy, Withion Power and Silvigen.

4. Residual waste sorting and energy generation

Significant opportunities exist to process domestic, commercial, industrial and construction waste, extract and recycle valuable materials within these waste streams and sell the remaining fractions as a raw material or as a fuel for energy generation.