MKM Building Supplies chief operating officer Dave Castle has been appointed board adviser to the Builders Merchants Federation, returning to the BMF Board as MKM expands its UK branch network. Castle, MKM’s first-ever COO with over 21 years’ experience in the building materials sector, has been working directly with branch directors, suppliers and customers to support ongoing investment in branches, people and services. His role at BMF will focus on training, safety, government lobbying and promoting careers in merchanting, giving MKM direct input into industry-wide policy discussions.

Resource nationalism is shifting from tax and royalty changes to export bans, production quotas and processing mandates, with China’s October 2025 rare earth export controls framework and the DRC’s 2025 cobalt export ban-turned-quota regime exposing supply chains to abrupt political risk. Indonesia’s nickel export ban has pulled in billions of dollars of downstream smelting and refining, while Vietnam’s ban on raw rare earth exports and Chile’s state-led lithium model tighten state control over value addition. Gibson Dunn warns that stabilisation clauses, force majeure terms and bilateral investment treaties are being stress-tested, making contract design, ownership structures and processing locations as critical as ore grades for lithium and rare earth projects.

ACE Group’s Environmental Industries Commission has issued a policy roadmap urging UK governments to classify nature-based solutions – such as wetlands, urban forests and green roofs – as core infrastructure on a par with roads, rail and engineered flood defences. The plan seeks multi‑year funding, integration into National Policy Statements and Treasury Green Book appraisal, and explicit performance metrics for biodiversity, flood attenuation and urban cooling. For designers and geotechnical teams, this signals stronger policy backing for hybrid schemes combining hard defences with soil‑ and vegetation‑based systems.