Company: Material Evolution
Founder: Dr Elizabeth Gilligan
Website: https://materialevolution.com/
About Material Evolution
Material Evolution (Mevo) is transforming the construction industry by producing ultra-low carbon cement, at scale, in the UK. In just 5 years, the start-up has innovated a process to reduce carbon emissions from cement by 85%, raised £25M in capital, and has a first-of-a-kind factory – the largest ultra-low carbon cement facility in the UK.
Born in CEO Dr Liz Gilligan’s garage in 2020 – the company has made significant progress towards its goal of saving one gigatonne of carbon by 2040.
Its game-changing patented alkali-fusion process enabled the production of an alternative cement using no heat, with 85% lower carbon emissions than traditional cement.
It launched the UK’s largest ultra-low carbon cement factory at scale in Wrexham in just eight months, becoming operational in October 2024. Mevo now faces an exciting future as it scales up operations.
Dr Gilligan and co-founder Sam Clark identified a significant issue – 8% of global emissions come from the cement industry. To help tackle the problem, they have:
-Launched MevoCem, the only ultra-low carbon cement available at scale, formulated without heat from industrial byproducts
-Raised £15 million needed to scale up production in a Series A funding round
-Developed the UK’s largest ultra-low carbon cement plant, co-located with supply chain partners CCP, minimising transport emissions
-Used smart manufacturing techniques and pneumatics to reduce the plant’s overall carbon footprint
-Harnessed advanced AI to accelerate material development and optimise feedstock selection for unparalleled performance
Cement is the world’s second most used substance after water – with the global concrete market worth around £500bn annually. Clearly, decarbonising the industry is a major challenge.
Winning investment was an initial hurdle. Investors can often struggle to understand the hardware industry but, thanks to successful networking and support, Mevo moved from concept to commercialisation within just five years.
Product validation was another important step. The construction industry is traditionally risk averse, relying on a 200+ year staple in ordinary Portland cement, and wary of products carrying a ‘green premium’. Mevo overcame this through industry collaboration, validating its product with pilot projects and third-party testing.
Mevo’s facility, utilising smart manufacturing techniques and pneumatic conveying systems to reduce the overall footprint, is itself a scalable innovation. It can produce up to 120,000 tonnes of MevoCem p/y.
Its breakthrough patented alkali fusion process avoids using fossil fuels to produce the extreme heat that feeds the energy-hungry kilns in traditional processes.
Industrial waste – including from the steel industry – is transformed into valuable raw materials. This promotes a circular economy, supporting net zero targets.
Mevo’s incredible success has underlined what is possible to achieve in the low-carbon cement sphere at speed.
It plans to further scale up operations with the support of major industry players – building a facility that can make at least half a million tonnes of cement a year by 2028. Mevo is committed to exploring new industrial byproducts as feedstocks to bring input costs down and make the technology even more scalable – supporting the construction industry at large and wider decarbonisation goals.
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