EMERGE: A pioneering recycling business planning for the future

Case study

Published

25th November 2024

Topic

Finance

A man sorting recycling coming from a big machine

Discover how a group of campaigners turned their concerns for the environment into a thriving enterprise, with help from the Community Shares Booster Fund.

Manchester based EMERGE Recycling started life in 1996 as a voluntary group campaigning against the building of an incinerator in the east of the city.

“When we won, there was the issue of what to do with the waste that would have been incinerated, so we decided to prove that recycling and reusing was a viable thing,” said EMERGE Chief Executive, Lucy Danger.

The organisation went on to build up a thriving recycling business. EMERGE pioneered household kerbside recycling and in its early days also won a contract with Manchester City Council for office waste recycling.

Latterly, it has focused on commercial waste, in particular confidential paper shredding, secure destruction of IT and electrical waste and recycling systems for businesses and organisations including companies like CDL and Morgan Sindall.

However, things changed after Covid-19 struck. “We were affected by the pandemic, because a lot of customers have downsized and gone paperless, which is great for environment,” said Commercial Director Mike Taylor.

“Part of the problem, though, was the cost-of-living crisis that followed on from the pandemic. Some companies have addressed cost-of-living issues to the detriment of environmental performance and responsibility.”

So we’re embarking on a piece of work encouraging people to do the right thing. Mixed recycling of glass, cans, cardboard and paper causes contamination and it’s less easy to recycle. We want to achieve clean stream recycling, which makes the process more efficient.

– Mike Taylor, Commercial Director, EMERGE Recycling

And with less paper to recycle, EMERGE has now diversified into wood re-use and recycling as part of its growth plan, an initiative called Touch Wood. “It’s going well and we have a strong order book, thanks to Mike coming in as Commercial Director,” said Lucy.

Mike said: “We rescue wood from building sites, including the current Manchester Town Hall refurbishment. We train people to become joiners and we build bespoke items, as well as selling wood to the public through our Touch Wood shop.

“Three years ago, Touch Wood had a turnover of £38,000, which has grown to £220,000. We’re part of the National Community Wood Recycling network. It’s really exciting.” It now represents around a quarter of EMERGE’s turnover and continues to grow.

EMERGE was originally set up as social enterprise and became a community benefit society in 2019, a decade after taking on the management of FareShare Greater Manchester – a food recycling operation tackling food poverty.

“We agreed to run FareShare but realised we needed to raise funds for such a charitable operation,” said Lucy. “Recycling couldn’t be part of the charity as the Charities Commission deemed it too commercial. So we had to separate the two companies, EMERGE 3Rs was born, it is a sister charity now running FareShare GM.

“Since EMERGE Recycling still needed investment, we decided to become a community benefit society in order that we could reach out to the wider community for support to grow.”

EMERGE launched their first community share offer in 2022 to raise funds to move to a bigger building, buy new equipment and create a new depot and wood re-use workshop.

The offer raised £215,000 from 112 investors, including £25,000 match equity investment from the Community Shares Booster Fund.

The support from Co-operatives UK and the Booster Fund literally did boost our efforts. We managed to get over the £200,000 hurdle, so it helped us achieve 72% of our target.

– Lucy Danger, Chief Executive, EMERGE Recycling

“When an organisation like Co-operatives UK comes on board and agrees to put money into the share offer, it gives other people the confidence to invest too. It’s reassuring to know you have that network of like-minded people alongside you and backing you.”

November 2024 sees EMERGE launching a second share offer to help the business grow and recover from ‘Covid and cost of living lag.’ “It’s about sustainability. We have the expertise and we intend to create more jobs and build our business,” said Mike.

With a target of £200,000 to raise, EMERGE has already received support from the Community Shares Booster Fund – in the form of a £7,500 development grant which has helped them prepare their share offer and achieve the Community Shares Standard Mark – a guarantee of a good quality share offer.

“The grant helped us create a share offer document with more impact,” said Lucy, “as it has paid for a brilliant advisor who’s helped us with our financial model, as well as expert design, graphics and copywriting – so we also have a great marketing campaign.”

EMERGE Recycling and Touch Wood’s lates share offer launched on 12 November 2024. For more information, visit their website or contact Lucy or Mike on 0161 223 8200 (option two).