Rubicon enables worldwide traceability of material flows with its software-as-a-service and data analysis for waste, recycling and smart city solutions. These services are fundamental for responsible and sustainable waste management, helping businesses and communities to fully understand and track the composition, flows, scale, impacts and costs of their waste.

Rubicon was founded with a mission to end waste, in all of its forms. Through collaboration with renowned tech institutions and environmental organisations, the company has built innovative technology solutions that have been adopted by companies in North America, Europe and Asia.

Problem

The linear economy creates waste at a great scale, which threatens the quality of our air, soil and water. Eliminating all waste streams would effectively change the linear economy into a circular one. The challenge is to create strong diversion processes and outlets for that material once it has been identified and separated.

Solution

Rubicon‘s technology enables businesses and haulers to connect, schedule and track waste pick-ups and to analyse the data gathered from these activities. Companies gain visibility to how much waste there is, where it is created and how it is currently being handled.

Large Fortune 500 companies use the solution to identity opportunities for waste reduction and recycling as well as to comply with regulations. The platform measures important metrics such as diversion rate from landfills and carbon emissions avoided, which can also support sustainability reporting and impact measurement.

Rubicon improves its users’ knowledge of their waste flows and can support their waste management processes design. Thus, it increases the capacity of these organisations to take further circular action, such as finding reuse opportunities for newly observed waste streams.

Rubicon collaborates with other organisations such as the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and Wharton initiative for global environmental leadership for knowledge transfer.

Environmental benefits

Rubicon’s focus is to increase their customers’ diversion rate from landfills. Their solutions have a positive impact on reducing waste generation and the use of virgin raw materials, which translates to reduced greenhouse gas emissions and pollution from materials production and the landfilling or incineration of waste. Diverting organic matter from the landfill specifically can decrease methane emissions and pollution to air, water and soil.

Social benefits

Rubicon’s technologies across industries improve access to sustainable production. Contributing towards improved recycling may decrease landfill and incineration of waste and the risks associated with them, such as pollution which impacts the health and wellbeing of local communities. Rubicon has a positive social impact by creating quality jobs and is B-Corp certified. The organisation covers employee health premiums and ensures fair employment.