Foresight invests $182 million in UK recycling and energy recovery projects

Foresight Group LLP, a U.K.-based private equity firm, has completed investments in 12 recycling and resource recovery projects with a combined waste processing capacity of more than 500,000 metric tons per year. The investments totaled £130 million (US$182.6 million) and were made through Foresight’s UK Waste Resources and Energy Investments (UKWREI) fund.

Of the 12 projects that were funded through the UKWREI, three are operational and the remainder are under construction.

Projects that have received investments from the UKWREI include combined heat and power (CHP) plants in Widnes, Birmingham, and Evermore, Northern Ireland; anaerobic digestion plants in Dagenham and Northern Ireland; and a plastics recycling facility in London.

Nigel Aitchison, a partner with Foresight and the company’s head of environmental, says, "This is a significant milestone for Foresight. The remit from our two institutional environmental funds have set challenging mandates to create new capacity, divert waste away from landfills, reduce CO2 emissions, create new and sustainable jobs and deliver a suitable commercial return for our investors.” 

Aitchison adds, "Getting to the point where we have been able to demonstrate that new capacity is under construction is a great achievement. Our projects will be contributing more than 50 megawatts of renewable electricity when the last of the facilities comes online in late 2016, diverting more than 500,000 metric tons of waste from landfills every year, and creating in excess of 800 construction and full-time jobs in this dynamic emerging sector.”

"We see this very much as the beginning with substantial investment potential remaining within the U.K.’s waste and renewable energy sector. We have a pipeline of projects, both large and small, and our institutional investors we believe have an increasing appetite to do more in this space. We therefore expect to see 2015 as being as productive as 2014.”

In 2012, Foresight was appointed as the first external fund manager by the U.K. Government’s Green Investment Bank (GIB), and was awarded £118 million (US$180 million) for the UKWREI. The money raised would be used, in conjunction with financing from the private sector, to invest in renewable energy and related waste infrastructure throughout the country.