CIRCULAR ECONOMY
STRENGTHENING CIRCULARITY ACROSS OUR BUSINESS
In 2025, Tarmac took an important step in advancing its long-established circular economy commitments with the introduction of a dedicated Circularity business. Built around the principles of maximising material value, reducing waste, and keeping resources in circulation for longer, this new structure strengthens our ability to deliver on our sustainability ambitions.
Circularity within Tarmac brings together key activities involved in recovering, managing and reprocessing materials, creating a more integrated approach to how resources flow through our operations. By unifying these functions under dedicated leadership, we are deepening the role of circular thinking across the business and enhancing our capability to reduce waste and optimise resource efficiency.
The creation of this business represents a natural evolution of the work we have been delivering in circularity for many years. It positions Tarmac to respond more effectively to emerging opportunities, support customers in delivering material efficient projects, and contribute to a more resilient and circular construction sector. By bringing expertise together in this way, we are reinforcing the foundations needed to increase recycling, expand material recovery, and ensure that circular economy principles remain central to our long-term strategy.
SCALING FILLER RE-USE ACROSS OUR OPERATIONS
Building on our circularity approach, Tarmac introduced a new national model for managing filler in 2025, transforming a material previously treated largely as waste into a valuable resource that remains within our operations. Prior to January 2024, only 6% of filler was reused; by the end of 2025 this had risen to over 90%.
Through coordinated action across the business our asphalt plants and Building Products division increased its utilisation to 23,000 tonnes and 10,500 tonnes of filler respectively, avoiding the disposal of 12,300 tonnes of material. This undertaking significantly reduced our reliance on external suppliers and unlocked new commercial value. This shift strengthens our circular economy approach, keeping materials in use for longer, reducing waste and supporting lower carbon construction.
RECYCLED INPUTS DELIVERING LOWER CARBON ASPHALT
Our asphalt operations continued to make strong progress in resource efficiency and carbon reduction throughout 2025. A key contributor was the ongoing expansion of Recycled Asphalt Planings (RAP) across our network, with more than 1 million tonnes incorporated into new asphalt mixes. Using RAP reduces the need to extract new aggregates and means the bitumen already present within the planings contributes to the final product, lowering demand for new bitumen and the carbon footprint associated with its production. When combined with biobinders and warm mix technologies, these approaches work together to deliver even greater carbon savings across our asphalt products.
CIRCULAR MANUFACTURING ACROSS OUR BLOCKS BUSINESS
Across our blocks business, we continued to embed circular practices into all production lines. Aggregate block manufacture is now operating at full circularity, with old or damaged blocks routinely crushed, processed and used to create new ones. In 2025, more than 16,500 tonnes of material were recovered and returned to production, reducing the need for virgin aggregates and strengthening the resilience of our internal material supply.
Building on the progress made through our new filler circularity model, the Building Products division also incorporated 10,500 tonnes of reclaimed filler into manufacture. This growing use of reclaimed filler forms part of the broader shift to keep more materials circulating within the business rather than being left as waste.
By combining recovered aggregates, recycled concrete, fly ash and internally reclaimed fillers, our blocks portfolio reduces demand for primary materials and supports a lower carbon, more resource efficient construction system. This approach helps retain material value for longer, cut waste across our operations, and reinforce Tarmac’s commitment to circular manufacturing.
ADVANCING CIRCULARITY IN CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION
Concrete remained an important contributor to our circularity goals in 2025, with increasing volumes recovered from construction, demolition and manufacturing sites, and returned to use. Reclaiming concrete at the end of its design life provides a valuable opportunity to reduce demand for primary materials and retain resources within the construction cycle. Recycled concrete can be crushed and processed for use not only as sub‑base and structural fill, but also as recycled aggregates in new concrete products, keeping materials at a higher value for longer and avoiding unnecessary waste.
Alongside these established practices, emerging innovation is opening up new possibilities. Research into recycled concrete fines is exploring their potential roles in carbon capture, cement replacement and the manufacture of new cementitious materials, supporting lower carbon construction and extending the useful life of concrete beyond its first application.
WASTE AND CIRCULAR RESOURCE USE
Tarmac’s circular economy approach continued to strengthen in 2025, with a growing focus on treating waste as a valuable resource rather than a material to be discarded. We remained a net user of waste, incorporating significantly more secondary materials into our products and activities than the waste generated across our own operations. In 2025, we used approximately 800 times more waste and secondary materials than we sent to landfill, demonstrating the scale of our contribution to wider waste diversion and resource recovery.
Reducing the amount of waste we generate remains a key priority. During the year, 95% of the waste produced across our operations was recycled, supporting our long-term ambition of achieving zero waste by 2030. Only 7,400 tonnes were sent to landfill, reflecting continued progress in reducing disposal and increasing reuse across our sites.
In parallel, we continued to make extensive use of secondary materials from other industries. In 2025, Tarmac incorporated 6 million tonnes of waste and byproducts from external sources into our manufacturing processes and restoration activities, ranging from recycled aggregates and reclaimed construction materials to industrial byproducts that serve as lower carbon fuels or raw materials. In 2025 our products averaged a recycled content of 5% across, more specifically, our aggregates contained 3% recycled content, our concrete averaged 5%, and our asphalt averaged an impressive 22%, demonstrating how circular practices are increasingly embedded across all major product lines.
By turning waste into worth, we not only conserve natural resources but also reduce the carbon footprint associated with extraction, processing, and primary material production.
These actions play a vital role in accelerating a circular economy across the construction sector, helping to keep materials in circulation for longer, reduce environmental impact, and contribute to a more resource efficient, lower carbon built environment.
CLOSING THE LOOP ON CONSTRUCTION WASTE
Our construction waste recovery operations remained central to Tarmac’s circular economy approach in 2025. By treating construction, demolition and excavation (CD&E) waste as a resource rather than a disposal requirement, we help customers reduce waste, cut carbon, and keep materials circulating within the construction cycle. Across our national network of permitted recovery and recycling sites, clean inert materials are reprocessed into high‑quality recycled aggregates that can be used directly in new construction programmes. Materials that cannot be recycled are utilised in the restoration of our former quarries, helping return land to productive future use and creating long‑term environmental and community value.
This approach reflects our commitment to using both the land and materials we manage to their fullest potential, supporting closed loop recycling wherever possible. It ensures that recovered materials gain a second life and that waste which cannot be reprocessed still plays a meaningful role in restoring natural and built environments. In 2025, we recovered and recycled 2.8 million tonnes of construction waste across our recycling and restoration operations. These activities continue to support the transition toward a more resource efficient and circular construction sector.
2.8 tonnes of construction waste used in our recovery and disposal operations.
Learn more about our waste recovery, recycled aggregates.
USING WASTE AS A FUEL
Tarmac continues to make progress in using waste materials not only as a resource for our products but also as a lower carbon source of fuel for our operations. This approach reduces the volume of waste sent to landfill and supports further carbon reductions across our manufacturing processes. In 2025, we used 165,521 tonnes of waste derived fuel, representing 53.1% of the total thermal demand of our cement business.
MINIMISING PACKAGING WASTE
Most of Tarmac’s products are supplied in bulk, which keeps our packaging requirements low. Where packaging is needed, we work to minimise its use to reduce waste and are focused on increasing the proportion of recycled material it contains, supporting our wider commitment to reducing waste and improving resource efficiency.
CONSERVING WATER
In 2025, we utilised a total of 26 million cubic metres of water, of which 10.2 million cubic metres were abstracted from quarry, ground, and surface water sources, 1.1 million cubic metres from potable water supply, and around 14.5 million cubic metres from recycled, harvested, and grey water systems.
LOOKING FORWARD
Supported by our new Circularity business, we will continue working towards a more circular system for construction materials, reviewing our operations to identify new opportunities to recover and reuse resources at their highest possible value and support the transition to a more circular, lower carbon built environment.
