Nate Morris, Chairman and CEO of Rubicon, joins Cheddar Innovates to discuss how the company is creating a digital marketplace for waste and recycling, and how technology and sustainability will go hand in hand in the future. 

Cheddar Innovates

How This Digital Marketplace is Ending Waste

Welcome back to cheddar innovates brought to you by curiosity stream everyone. Our next guest is bringing innovation to the sustainability space. Rubicon is a software platform that provides smart waste and recycling solutions for businesses and governments worldwide, setting all new standards for the industry joining us now, Nate Morris chairman and Ceo over at Rubicon, a digital marketplace for waste and recycling Nate. Tell us more about your mission and what exactly that means a digital mark place. Yeah, thank you. Rubicon is the largest digital waste and recycling marketplace in the world. And what we've done at Rubicon is really democratizing and power a big portion of the waste and recycling market here in the United States in various parts of the world. About 50% of the United States waste market is occupied by small business owners and Rubicon is providing technology to the small business owners. These waste haulers and recyclers to have an opportunity to some of the largest contracts in the world through the marketplace. And in this process we're also aligning incentives to recycle as much as possible are recycling rate today on the marketplace is almost three times better than some of that of, of the large waste players that have occupied this industry for generations. The other aspect of of what we do is also providing data and analytics. We all know. Environmental reporting is more important than it's ever been and we now have consumers that are making purchasing decisions based upon things like your waist profile. How much are you wasting? How much are you recycling? What are you doing to drive efficiency inside your own supply chain and a Rubicon. We help answer these questions and a lot more. I'm sure a lot of that has to do with the software that you utilize. So tell us more how that implements your mission of ending waste. Well, I believe technology can be the greatest driver uh to help us achieve better outcomes for the planet and we've invested lots of time and energy and resources to building. I believe, the best products we'd ever in the history of the waste and recycling category. This is a category Prior to Rubicon that was highly antiquated. You might find spreadsheets flying around, you might find carbon paper, even faxes in this day and age and Rubicon. We're working to digitize A $2 trillion main street but also to some of the biggest customers At the Fortune 500 level. I think we have some technical issues of Asia. So I'm gonna jump in. It's Alicia here. I'm curious what are some examples of how this software is used. Well, obviously we're arming a lot of these independent haulers that I mentioned, the thousands of these independent haulers and giving them a product suite that allows them to really level the playing field And democratize this very large and historically known as a very tough industry. And so our products are helping to drive a new industry standard on the way we think about the waste category uh and what we can do to bring it into the 21st century and also beginning to use things like computer vision uh to understand the waste characterization of what's being thrown away. So we can make better decisions. We can also spot things like contamination earlier, so we can increase those recycling rates for our Fortune 500 customers, midsized customers, even small businesses. How do you see technology and sustainability evolving in the future? Well, I believe Rubicon is at the intersection of how public policy, technology and sustainability are all firing together in our economy. And we all know that the consumer that we're dealing with today is demanding more than ever and more transparency. And I believe that uh some of the greatest opportunities uh to be better stewards of the planet are gonna come through technology based solutions and that's what we believe here at Rubicon through environmental innovation um that we can get to some of the goals that we all want to achieve. I often say in the company that no one's pro garbage, no one wants to produce more garbage. And we have got to find a way to really meet the challenge and to do something better than to landfill are garbage landfills unfortunately are still a part of our everyday society here in the United States. But I believe there's gonna come a day when through the data that we collect the information and the transparency we get in the market, that we can help drive infrastructure uh, to be better and to get off this landfill model And to really move this industry fully into the 21st century tonight to that extent. And you know, what, what's next for Rubicon? Well, as reported by the Wall Street Journal back in last december, uh, Rubicon is heading in a uh, to become a public business. We have partnered with a with founders back that's currently on the NASDAQ. And we look forward to Rubicon becoming a public business in the near future. And we think everything looks very bright. We'll be sure to come back and join us when you go public. You know, I'll be here at the floor of the exchange so you will be happy to welcome you and then kind of see the plans that will continue to develop for the company Nate Morris Chairman and Ceo of Rubicon.