Making Concrete Sexy: Oscar Ledlin’s Out to Fix Construction’s Dirty Secret

Oscar Ledlin is in the business of making concrete sexy. The commercial developer-turned-entrepreneur has backed sustainable building materials in a big way, he told the audience during his Fireside Chat at The Urban Developer’s Urbanity-26 conference on the Gold Coast. With a father and older brother in the business, concrete is in the blood. So launching recycled building materials manufacturer Sustainable Concrete Group with co-founder Brendan Lloyd was something of a full circle. It also means the Melbourne-based Ledlin Group founder and Rich Lister intimately understands the impact concrete has on the environment, the people who work with it and the industry that uses it. “There’s about 70 million tons of concrete produced annually in Australia, of which 30 million tons is sand—it is the second most used resource in the world, after water, ” Ledlin said. “I’m a rather commercially minded person, while also trying to make an impact on the world—concrete is a really good platform to have massive impact.” Selling sustainable concrete to Gen Z Ledlin’s ambitions require a wider reach than might normally be achieved by his company called Sustainable Concrete Group (SCG), but he is no stranger to using a “Gen Z” style of marketing, after selling storage units and commercial tenancies via social media in the past. “When you think of an ESG construction play, branding doesn’t usually sit at the forefront,” Ledlin said. “But to have massive impact in any space, particularly construction, you have to have people talking about the product.” ▲ Sustainable Concrete Group’s recycled sand concrete product has proved a “slam dunk” with government contractors. Gaining a following on social media platforms has been key to raising profile and awareness of SCG. “It’s about having enthusiasm and being willing to put yourself out there and talk about commercial applications in an arena like social media,” Ledlin said. “That can come with skeptics, people who’ve been in concrete for 50 years that want to challenge you on what you’re doing ... and you have to be prepared for that.” Despite the haters, Ledlin believes awareness will lead to market adoption. “[It’s about] how we position the business to make concrete sexy, and I like to think over the last couple of years we’re starting to do that,” he said. Commercially minded ESG For too long ESG has been an exercise in paperwork, with supposedly green materials proving unwieldy, expensive, and not fit for purpose. SCG turns recycled glass into sand for concrete manufacturing, and has technology which can turn soft plastics into an aggregate, another component of concrete. But SCG is growing, investing in six subcontracting businesses. “They sit beneath our platform, and we use our technology in those businesses to help them win tier one government contracts that are ESG favoured.” ▲ SCG is aiming at Tier 1 builders and developers, for whom green credentials can mean greater government support. This strategy is intended to kickstart adoption. “Because it doesn’t matter how good these products are [or] how commercially competitive they are, adoption is slow [in construction],” Ledlin said. “It always has been, and it probably always will be.” With private equity backing and revenues of around $180 million, the business is turning into its own self-sustaining ecosystem. And its success is helping it gain traction externally too, aiming at major infrastructure groups undertaking government work that necessitates an sustainability component, like Victoria’s Recycled First Policy, which mandates recycled materials in government construction projects valued over $20 million. Fighting against virtue signalling But Ledlin wants SCG products to competitively rival those using virgin sand, not just as a virtue signalling exercise. He said that the recycled plastics in SCG’s aggregate were 30 per cent lighter than virgin alternatives, making it easier to shovel and increasing flexural strength. “[As an industry] we’re saying we’re green when we’re not, or we’re doing it for the wrong reasons,” Ledlin said. “If we’re relying on government support and policy and if we’ve got developers and builders that are using our product because they have to, and it’s not in their commercial interest, it’s just setting us up for disaster. “But I like to think that there is innovation in this space, and we can produce products and methods that are cost competitive and hopefully cost beneficial too.”

Construction
Clare Burnett
Mon 27 Jul 26

Making Concrete Sexy: Oscar Ledlin’s Out to Fix Construction’s Dirty Secret

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