I am Technical Director of REMIN (Scotland), a company I set up in 2014.

My 2003 Fellowship was entitled European Waste Management – Policies and Practices. The aim was to travel around Europe to learn how our European neighbours were apparently managing their waste streams so much better than us. For several years previously I had been a member of the North Board of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and had become interested in how our wastes, or unutilised by-products, could be a resource if the context was changed.

Soon after my Fellowship I became fully immersed in one by-product, namely basalt or dolerite rock dust, from the quarry industry. Some 17 years later, my conviction remains that this material has a vast unrealised potential to help tackle so many of today's problems. I call it REMIN. REMIN has all recognised minerals and trace elements required for healthy soil and plants. Recent work with Newcastle University now recognises the carbon-capture capabilities of REMIN.

My Fellowship has put me on a path of utter conviction that I have a material here that could yet make a significant contribution to the survival of our species on Planet Earth.