Protecting Earth's precious resources

For recycling firm BR Metals, saving the environment is good business.

The company recovers platinum group metals (PGMs) - precious metals such as platinum and palladium - from scrap materials, offering a sustainable alternative to mining for them.

"The mining of PGMs has caused serious and often irreversible environmental damage and negative social impacts," explains BR Metals founder and managing director Frank Chen, 40. "I wanted to build an ecological, responsible recycling business to help solve this problem."

Since its founding in 2009, BR Metals has expanded to include offices in Singapore, China and Cambodia, as well as two processing facilities here and in China's Shaoguan city. It currently recovers 80,000 troy ounces (2,500kg) of PGMs annually, and supplies these to a range of industries, primarily to the auto manufacturing industry, which uses over 60 per cent of the PGM global supply.

For its contributions to sustainability, it won a Distinction in the Brands for Good 2021/2022 awards, under the Business for Good category.

Doing more, doing better

Over the years, BR Metals has invested in state-of-the-art technologies and pursued certifications to deliver on its mission.

As its volume of incoming scrap materials grew, it installed sensors and programmable logic controllers to automate its sampling process, increasing productivity and addressing labour shortages.

In Singapore, the upgrade lowered production cycle times, electricity use and costs.

BR Metals plans to deploy robotics to analyse the samples, which is needed to determine the scrap materials' PGM content for payment to suppliers. This will reduce the error rate of its analyses from about three per 100 samples to about three per 1,000 samples.

It is currently working with the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) on a new analysis methodology that will significantly shorten the time needed for the analyses, and improve their accuracy.

BR Metals was among the first recycling businesses in China to achieve the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) 14100 certification, which sets out stringent environmental criteria for projects, assets and activities. It adopted the even stricter ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management Systems Standard in 2017.

Last year, it launched a Responsible Supply Chain Policy which requires its suppliers to meet both workplace and sustainability standards. "As we strive to act in an ethical, transparent and responsible way, we expect our business partners to do the same," explains Mr Chen.

He notes that embracing environmental standards has pushed up the firm's operating costs, which has hurt its competitiveness in the price-sensitive recycling industry. "Nevertheless, we are proud to be doing our part to protect and conserve our environment," he says.

The company has also gone from strength to strength. Between the financial years of 2016 and 2020, its revenue rose from US$4.8 million (S$6.5 million) to US$130 million, showing that doing good can go hand in hand with doing well.

Extending a hand to those in need

BR Metals gives back to society in other ways, too. "Beyond our commitment to sustainability, we believe in the transformative power of education to improve lives and communities," says Mr Chen.

In 2019, it established the BR Metals Scholarship for the Bachelor of Science with Honours in Chemical Engineering at SIT. The scholarship is for Singaporean students from disadvantaged backgrounds who have excelled in school.

"We hope the scholarship will open up more opportunities for these young Singaporeans to get ahead in life, especially those who have overcome seemingly impossible odds," he says.

BR Metals also partnered with AZK Business Consultants and Laotian non-profit Phongsavanh Foundation to build a school in rural Laos. When it opened in August 2021, the school provided free primary school education and meals for children from low-income families, in one of the most impoverished districts in the country.

Reflecting on the firm's journey so far, Mr Chen says it has been tough but worthwhile. "I had many doors shut in my face when I was raising the initial capital, and the firm almost folded a few times due to cashflow pressures and unforeseen challenges," he recalls.

"Still, I never gave up or lost sight of my vision, which has remained the same: to solve a dire problem and preserve Earth's finite resources for our children."

The birth of his daughter in 2021 has only sharpened his resolve. He says: "I've always looked for new horizons and blue oceans in the sustainability realm. Now, I'm more dedicated than ever to contributing towards a sustainable future for my daughter."