What inspired you to want to work with Re-Nuble?
The opportunity to build a carbon negative business that enables farms to significantly decrease their carbon emissions is amazing. Also, in a decentralized way, to build a fertilizer that can compete effectively with mined synthetic fertilizers on a global scale was too much to pass up!
Do you have a green thumb and how do you practice it?Unfortunately I do not! I have some plants that did well with me for years, but only after much toil and care. So I would say that I at most have a very sore green thumb.
What does a Sustainable NYC mean to you and how do you envision Re-Nuble fitting into that vision?I see NYC as a master city in almost every way possible. I've been here for 15 years and have seen its capacity for mastering new industries. The startup scene was practically nonexistent in the early 2000s, and now this city has built technologies and companies that, in only a few years, are fundamentally improving lives. I think a Sustainable NYC is a natural extension of the capabilities of this city, its forward-thinkers, and its tendency for rapid evolution. I think we can kickstart this by building a closed loop out of the massive waste that is kicked off from the processing facilities that feed this city. We can take those lost nutrients, and instead of bagging them to sit in landfills to produce dangerous methane for a year, we can simulate a natural ecosystem and loop these nutrients back into food production. I think when we operate at industrial scales like these, we can make structural changes and get closer to a step function shift toward a truly Sustainable NYC.
How do you practice aspects of a circular economy/sustainability at home?A lot of this is personal. We don't eat foods at home that consume massive resources to produce. Of course this is all relative. The biggest thing is that we try (our best!) to focus our work in areas / industries that help us all do better and be better as a collective human race. Its not perfect, but we're always working at it. We started experimenting with composting and have been recycling for years, but since our individual actions only make small dents, I try to focus on the big dents, like only getting our electricity from the sun and the wind (we direct our payments to solar and wind farms, rather than other fossil fuel-derived sources). I'm hoping to get an electric car (maybe a 2X used tesla might be available sometime?). Project Drawdown isa great resource that has helped me focus my efforts on what really makes a difference. It's a work in progress.
Other companies and brands are doing great work. They are succeeding in building efficiencies in the environmental impact of buildings, producing food from urban hydroponics, converting the flow of waste with sustainable packaging, and improving how we make products with planet-conscious manufacturers. There are some great and profitable businesses helping move us along. I see Re-Nuble as a component in this process. We have cracked the code on converting food waste into an industrial-grade fertilizer that is heavily competitive with the standard synthetic fertilizers that currently run food production worldwide. We can go into a city and turn thousands of tons of food waste, that would have otherwise poisoned our air with methane, into hundreds of tons of crisp, local, organic produce that taste amazing (we have a killer micronutrient profile). This is exciting, new, and took years of development to achieve in a scalable way, so we are excited to be a part of this greater, rapid movement toward sustainability in our cities.
Learn more about Rahul here