waste-to-value
(5)
Carba
Carba is a Minneapolis-area climate-tech company that turns low-value waste biomass - dead trees, yard waste, and other biogenic scraps - into a stable, charcoal-like material called biocarbon (biochar). Using a patent-pending autothermal pyrolysis reactor and an anoxic (oxygen-starved) burial method, Carba locks carbon away for a certified 1,000+ years, most notably inside existing landfills where the material can also filter pollutants. The company sells the resulting permanent carbon-removal credits - including a five-year, 44,000-tonne deal with Microsoft - and aims to remove a billion tons of CO2 by 2035.
Zero Waste Co.
Zero Waste Co. is a climate-tech and circular-economy company that turns agro-industrial byproducts and food waste into high-value resources - chiefly livestock feed - through technology-driven, tailor-made processes. Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Miami with operations across Latin America, it pairs its EcoHub processing facilities with a Carbon Solutions arm that measures, monetizes, and manages verified carbon credits, letting food and beverage producers turn waste liabilities into profit and measurable emissions reductions.
Jean Pierre Azañedo
Jean Pierre Azañedo is the CEO and co-founder of Zero Waste Co. (ZWC) and CoreZero, a Miami-based climate-tech venture that turns food waste and other discarded material into tradable carbon credits. A second-time founder from Peru, he previously built Kanay into that country's leading waste-management company before it was acquired by France's Séché Group. In 2023 CoreZero serialized the world's first carbon credits generated from food-waste diversion, working with the Mexican food-banking network. Azañedo's thesis is simple and stubborn: waste has boundless value, and nobody makes something just to throw it away.
Andrew Jones
Andrew Jones is the co-founder and CEO of Carba, a Minneapolis-based carbon-removal startup that turns waste biomass into a durable, charcoal-like biocarbon and buries it to lock away CO2 for more than 1,000 years. A chemical engineer with a PhD from UC Berkeley, Jones invented Carba's patented low-energy pyrolysis and storage process and describes the work as 'reversing the coal mining process.' He previously founded and exited Activated Research Company, and has steered Carba from a 2021 lab idea to a working molten-salt reactor at a Burnsville landfill, a multi-year carbon-credit deal with Microsoft, and a goal of removing a gigaton of CO2 a year.
Julia Reichelstein
Julia Reichelstein is the co-founder and CEO of Vaulted Deep, a Houston-based carbon removal company that pumps carbon-rich organic waste up to 5,000 feet underground for permanent storage. A Stanford economist who built a fintech firm in Kenya and invested in climate tech at Piva Capital, she partnered with deep-well injection expert Omar Abou-Sayed to spin Vaulted out of Advantek Waste Management in 2023. The company won the $8M XPRIZE Carbon Removal in 2024 and has signed offtake deals with Microsoft, Google, and Frontier Climate.