NISP workshop finds over 500 new construction sector business opportunities

Date: March 5th 2009

One of Pathway To Zero Waste’s partners is the National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (NISP).

On March 5, NISP ran one of their unique ‘quick-wins’ workshops at their regional HQ in Basingstoke.

The event brought together construction companies from across the South East and put industrial symbiosis into practice, aiming to find potential business opportunities for the delegates from the delegates.

NISP workshops are extremely dynamic and output-focussed. They match resources that delegates’ organisations either have or need against those of other organisations in the workshop, creating new business opportunities in the process. The approach they employ is to assume that all material – including material often discarded as waste - is a potential resource.

Over 500 matches or ‘synergies’ were highlighted at the March 5 workshop – a tremendous result. They related to recycling facilities, reprocessing capacity, wood waste, aggregates, road planings, contaminated land, anaerobic digestion (AD) facilities, airline textiles, ashes, silts and filter cakes - to name just a few! If just a proportion of the business opportunities highlighted come to fruition hundreds of thousands of tonnes of material could be diverted from landfill, with cost savings and additional sales for the businesses involved.

David Raymen, Highways Sustainability Co-ordinator for construction services company May Gurney, was very impressed with the event, calling it "One of the most effective ways of finding solutions to your problems in an innovative and friendly manner.”

So too was Pathway To Zero Waste’s Director, Chindarat Taylor, who took part in the workshop as well as speaking at the event. The workshop highlighted a total of 35 potential opportunities for the PTZW team to progress.

For more information on NISP, click here (link to NISP website). Alternatively, contact NISP’s South East team on 0845 094 9521 or Southeast@nisp.org.uk