Nuplanet Sustainable Solutions aiming for the international stage
By Aimee Walsh
Following their win of the ‘Best Start-Up’ award at the South Dublin LEO Enterprise Awards 2021, Nuplanet Sustainable Solutions have big plans to turn the business into an international company.
Nuplanet Sustainable Solutions create products aiming to eliminate waste, pollution and carbon emissions by practicing sustainability.
Company Director Shane McMahon and Martin Holles of Nuplanet Sustainable Solutions
The company started trading in November 2019 in Lucan and also have an office in Navan, where the vast majority of production takes place.
Director of the company Shane McMahon, said he always felt that the solutions that already existed were not thinking “hard enough” about the circular economy.
“Our services are all fully circular so we try to turn waste into fuel”, explained McMahon, “food waste is a massive issue – it is responsible for 11 per cent of greenhouse gases and a massive amount of methane comes from food waste.
“Our soil is terribly depleted and it is far over harvested. 100 per cent of our harvest is coming from just 10 per cent of the global soil reserves.
“The biggest environmental threat we face at the moment is the state of our soil. What our machines do is turn that food waste into a product, which is essentially a nutrient rich soil enhancer,” added McMahon.
McMahon said that recent research from Teagasc found that by putting this soil enhancer back onto the land promotes growth by 400 per cent when used with plants.
He said: “Now you have a situation where the client has no more bin charges which can be quite high and they are doing something sustainable for the environment.
“They are not transferring food waste off-site and they can put it back into their land or sell it to garden centres.”
In addition to the bio digesters that turn food waste into a soil enhancer, the company also have products that turn grease into biofuel and a ventilation system that runs on 33 per cent less energy.
The company have availed of LEO supports in the past and said winning the award was “absolutely fantastic”.
“LEO were so supportive from the start, whenever I put in my business plan they could not have done more to help and I could not speak highly enough about them,” McMahon told The Echo.
“They could see our vision of what we were trying to do and things have really just gone from strength to strength.”
McMahon said that although Covid-19 brought a decrease in sales it gave him time to focus on a strategy to grow the company into the global market.
He said: “It has been bad obviously, sales weren’t got but it allowed time to really focus on strategy and engage with the right customers, partners and businesses.”
Nuplanet have engaged with various different global companies who are going to be able to roll out their products across Ireland, the UK and over into Europe.
The company currently employ six people, but say they will have to ramp that up to 30 or 40 staff once Covid-19 restrictions end.
McMahon continued: “It will be an international company in a few years, there is no question about it and that couldn’t have happened without LEO, they have been so helpful.
“Lisa Cunningham was mentoring us on various different strategies and she was great too.
“It’s really interesting stuff, I think it will take over the whole sector,” concluded Shane.
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