Circularity Scotland, the company which oversaw Scotland’s deposit return scheme (DRS), has entered administration.
The news comes shortly after Scotland’s DRS was delayed until October 2025.
The company has appointed administrators from financial-aid firm Interpath Advisory after its troubles were revealed last week.
Interpath Advisory said: “It was clear that Circularity Scotland would be unable to meet various significant contractual obligations, certain of which would become due imminently, without additional funding.”
It added: “While Circularity Scotland was in active discussions with key stakeholders to secure additional funding, these negotiations unfortunately proved unsuccessful and so, after exhausting all other potential options, the company’s directors took the difficult decision to file for the appointment of administrators.”
The advisory firm said its focus will be on “securing and realising Circularity Scotland’s available assets, for the benefit of its creditors”.
Yesterday (20 June), Scotland's circular-economy minister Lorna Slater told the Scottish parliament the decision to appoint administrators has left Circularity Scotland’s staff “in an extremely difficult position”.
She added: “That is an unforgivable consequence of the UK government’s eleventh-hour intervention, which undermined our deposit return scheme, made progress impossible and is now resulting in those jobs being lost.
“We continue to liaise with Circularity Scotland to consider how we may be able to support its staff, including providing partnership action for continuing employment—PACE—support, which is the Scottish government’s initiative for providing advice and guidance to people at risk of redundancy.”
Blair Nimmo, Interpath Advisory CEO and joint administrator, added: “The ongoing uncertainty surrounding the future launch of the deposit return scheme prompted the company’s backers to withdraw future funding, and as such, the directors were left with few options other than to seek the appointment of administrators.”
The organisation was set up in 2021 as a not-for-profit company to administer Scotland’s DRS, which was to be funded by drinks producers.
The decision to postpone the implementation of DRS in Scotland has been welcomed by much of the drinks industry but has left some companies that had invested in preparing for the scheme to go live in March 2024 unhappy.
Members of the British Soft Drinks Association (BSDA) are said to among those be pushing for financial reparations, although Holyrood said it was yet to receive any such requests for compensation.
The Scottish government said it had been left with little choice but to further delay the implementation of DRS, after the UK government said the scheme could only go ahead in March 2024 with the exclusion of glass.
