Sustainable building materials provider SL Materials announced a new €100 million (USD$112 million) investment from Aviva Investors and ABN AMRO, with proceeds aimed at scaling the company’s circular concrete platform.
Building materials are a key source of global greenhouse gas emissions. Cement production, an ingredient in concrete, accounts for approximately 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions, with over 900 kg of CO2 emissions generated for every 1,000 kg of material produced.
Founded in 2019, Netherlands-based SL Materials, formerly Urban Mine, enables the re-use of high value concrete from demolition projects in the production of new concrete. The company’s platform recovers recover sand, gravel and cement from demolished concrete, using its technology and refining process to produce recycled raw materials designed to match the technical quality of primary materials.
According to SL Materials, the solution produces high-quality, low-carbon concrete that meets the strength, durability and certification requirements of conventional concrete, and delivers significant reductions in embodied carbon compared with traditional concrete.
The company said that the new investments, made through Aviva Investors’ Climate Transition European Infrastructure Fund and ABN AMRO’s Sustainable Impact Fund, will support the expansion of its existing operations in Zaandam, as well as the development of additional production capacity across new sites and further technology development and innovation.
Angenika Kunne, Head of Infrastructure Equity at Aviva Investors, said:
“SL Materials combines a proven track record of operating at commercial scale with what we believe is a compelling opportunity for further growth. Having demonstrated its ability to produce high-quality circular concrete that can compete with conventional products on both performance and economics, we see significant potential to build on that established platform, particularly through near-term opportunities to expand production capacity and develop new sites.”
Alongside the new capital, SL Materials also announced the appointments of James Cousins as CEO and Steve Millburn as COO.
Cousins said:
“We have demonstrated that concrete recovered from demolition can be transformed at industrial scale into high-quality materials for new concrete, without compromising quality or technical performance. With the long-term backing of Aviva Investors CTEIF and ABN AMRO SIF, we can now build on that foundation, expand our capacity and establish SL Materials as a leading industrial platform for circular low carbon concrete.”
The transaction was also supported by Kingsley Capital, including the contribution of Kingsley’s UK circular-concrete platform Koreco as a wholly owned subsidiary of SL Materials.
