The waste management and recycling company Cory incinerates and recycles waste from municipalities along the River Thames in Greater London. In our conversation, Dougie Sutherland, Cory’s CEO, takes a look back at the company’s beginnings and looks forward into the near future. This means: decarbonisation, CO2 capture and heat utilisation.

Your company can look back on more than 200 years of history. How would you describe it in your own words?
We are one of London’s oldest businesses and we can trace our history back to at least 1785 when we imported coal by ship from Wales and from the north-east of England. Shipping coal on the River Thames was our core business for over 150 years.

Post World War II we invested in quarries and imported building materials to rebuild London. The quarries became landfill sites, Cory became a waste management company, and 15 years ago we invested in energy from waste (EfW) and sold the landfill business. We now process over 20% of London’s waste and divert it away from landfill. Currently we are investing nearly GBP 1 billion into new river-based infrastructure that will double the size of the business by 2026.

The two things that have not changed in our history are the importance of the River Thames and our culture of public service. We have always stepped up to our country’s challenges: our men fought in the Battle of Trafalgar; we mobilised our fleet for the Crimean War; and we fought in both World Wars, losing 14 ships under enemy fire in each War. We are incredibly proud of our history!

Our success has required us to change with the times, and today we are developing our business to address the existential threat of climate change. Our main focus is carbon capture and storage, and we are currently developing a scheme to capture 1.5 million tonnes of the CO2 produced from processing London’s waste.

The Thames will remain at the heart of our future operations, as we will use ships to export CO2 for storage under the North Sea. – Ironically, we started as a business importing “carbon” into London and we are transitioning into a business that is exporting it back into the earth where it came from!

Your slogan is “No waste from waste”. How do you make this a reality?
Our primary role is to process waste safely, efficiently and environmentally. Waste is a resource, and we look to recycle and reuse everything that is sent to our facilities. This includes: extracting all of the energy and reusing it in the form of power and heat; extracting all metals from the ash and recycling them; and processing the ash so it can be reused as aggregate for building and civil engineering projects.

We recycle or reuse the vast majority of what people throw out to ensure that there is no waste from waste. We have yet to find a use for the CO2 that waste processing creates and today this is the biggest challenge that is really preoccupying me and my team. 

When did this focus on decarbonisation come about?
I would say about four years ago, we moved from “talk” to “doing”. It was clear to me that not only do we have a moral duty to decarbonise, but it is also what will differentiate Cory from our competitors.

Last year, the UK Government announced that energy from waste will be included in the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) from 2028, meaning that effectively waste CO2 will be taxed. This will materially increase the cost of throwing out waste. I am a fan of the ETS as ultimately it takes a blunt instrument like money to really change behaviour and to create the right long-term policy environment that allows the private sector to invest into decarbonisation strategies.

That is the keyword for your latest project “Carbon Capture & Storage”. What are your specific plans?
We have two energy from waste plants, one existing and one under construction (on the same site) that will be operational during 2026. We will then process around 1.5 million tonnes of waste which means we will be producing about 1.5 million tonnes of CO2. Over the past three and a half years, we have been developing a carbon capture system and we expect to receive a planning decision at the end of 2025. So, we expect to make final investment decision in 2026 and finalise construction and procure ships (or a shipping service) by 2029/30. 

We have a big advantage over many of our competitors who are land locked and will need extensive infrastructure to move CO2 by pipeline. We already operate on the Thames and can therefore deliver the CO2 captured directly to our ships and transport it to the storage location. 

Where is this storage location?
Storage will be in the Viking site in the North Sea, about 120 km from the mainland. There is a depleted gas field with an existing pipeline to the mainland. The UK Government is backing the conversion of a number of these storage sites. The gas field is 2.7 km below the sea and capped with a salt layer that previously prevented the gas from escaping for millions of years and will do the same for CO2. 

Your first EfW plant, Riverside 1, has been in operation since 2011. What happens to the electricity produced in this plant? What about the heat?
The electricity we produce is baseload for the National Grid. EfW in the UK currently represents between 3–4% of the UK’s power. We run our facilities on the power that we produce, and this will materially increase once we have built our carbon capture facility as this technology is currently power hungry.

In many places in Europe, heat from EfW plants is integrated into community heating systems. This is not yet the case in the UK. However, heat is the most efficient use of our energy and we produce enough to heat the whole financial and political centre of London.

Delivering heat from our facilities to local communities and into the City of London will take significant investment in infrastructure and will take time to make a reality. However, we have developed a solution to transport the heat on the River Thames via thermal batteries loaded onto barges, which will deliver it directly to existing heat networks along the river. This is a very creative way of using existing technology which can be implemented quickly to decarbonise existing gas-powered heat networks.

In this perspective, how do you see the role of the UK Government?
It is important that the Government sets policy frameworks that allow long-term investment into infrastructure and into developing new technology. This is well understood, and the UK Government is developing policies and providing funding that can support significant investment in decarbonisation technologies like CCS.

We cannot kick the climate emergency down the road – maybe they will – but so far CCS is getting serious policy focus and funding from government and the private sector is also investing heavily in developing projects. If we lose this momentum then this would be an economic and, more importantly, an environmental disaster for the next generation. 

The River Thames plays a significant role in your business and its history. Nevertheless, are there any plans to expand into other regions of the UK?
We are definitely looking at how to grow the business, but this has to be based on the competitive value that we bring. We are very good at operating energy from waste plants, but so are others. The UK almost has enough EfW facilities to satisfy demand so there is limited opportunity for additional growth. What we are unique at is operating on the river. So, expansion along the Thames is a sweet spot for the business. We are also developing an expertise in carbon capture and carbon trading which could lead to growth in other regions of the UK.

Our current focus is very much on the construction of the new EfW facility and supporting infrastructure including carbon capture which will deliver significant growth.

Would you say that Cory enables people to lead a sustainable life?
A happy and motivated work force is a good benchmark for a sustainable life. We were recently audited by Investors In People. Consistent feedback was “I love working at Cory” – so I would answer your question with a resounding Yes.

In 2018, Swiss Life Asset Managers, as part of a consortium of infrastructure investors, acquired the UK waste management and recycling company Cory to support its sustainable waste management, energy recovery facilities and decarbonisation plans.

Swiss Life Asset Managers has a long investment horizon in infrastructure and combines industry knowledge with reliability and sustainability.

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