reNature

Since the first Earth Day was celebrated in April of 1970 and in the ensuing forty years since, humanity has placed an ever increasing focus upon insuring the well being of the planet it calls home. While all advancement and progress comes with a price, the world began to collectively realize that existing methodologies for development were exacting a price that humanity could no longer afford. In the subsequent decades following that first Earth Day, the resulting societal thought conversion has led to a mass rethinking of means and methods of both cooperating with nature and making that cooperation economically viable. This re-thinking has brought about a new era of sustainability experimentation and has yielded some astounding results, not in opposition to the industrial revolution of the past and the technological revolution of the present but rather in partnership with both.

 reNature takes a unique and critical role in propelling society towards a more sustainable model by closing the loop on the nutrient cycle and reducing land fill waste. reNature will shift industrial waste management practices from an unsustainable linear process to a natural closed cycle that excels over emerging alternatives. The reNature process preserves the valuable nutrients typically burned off or buried by traditional practices. The reNature process takes aim at rising agricultural costs and addresses the concerns of Peak Phosphorus. reNature seeks to present a solution that will highlight the direction in which society must proceed. reNature keeps it simple. Rather than trying to bend nature to society’s will, reNature will accelerate the natural processes to the maximum efficiency level, lower capital startup costs, and differentiate itself in markets that other companies simply cannot afford to compete in.

 reNature technology presents a distributed waste disposal model that can turn around waste 10x faster than existing methods by not relying on market-specific and inefficient methane generation practices, or traditional and slow, composting methods. Throughout its process, reNature will also create permanent local jobs within the municipalities it serves.

The end-product will be sold directly to farmers in concentrated form, introducing strong competition in fertilizer markets. In addition to the benefits reNature’s technology can add to large scale agricultural production, the renewed focus upon purchasing locally grown produce provides an additional market incentive for reNature's technology. Further value to agricultural efforts is added in that the water byproduct of reNature’s technology can replenish local aquifers to create a truly sustainable business model.

Existing waste disposal alternatives require high tipping fees, exclusive government agreements for waste disposal and excessively volatile market costs for power generation from syn-gasses, or methane. While these efforts are laudable, the inefficiencies in the Waste-Methane production creates a disincentive to direct sales of the fuel. When the purity of the gas mixture is too low, it requires burning on site (56% gas ratio, vs. 80%+ needed for consumer use), or costly purification processes that squeeze methane plants out of the market. In addition to the inherently noncompetitive nature of these processes, these waste-fuel facilities burn away the valuable nutrients that can be both beneficial to the planet and profitable.  Thus far the alternative has been to dump them into the sewage systems, where treatment plants prevent them from being part of the natural nutrient cycle, or end up creating dead-zones in major fishing areas.

The reNature process utilizes well established bio-reactor technology with some proprietary customizations to maximize efficiency over competing processes.  By focusing on maximizing efficiency in waste disposal and value-added fertilizer production, reNature can out-compete existing technologies in most markets without requiring heavy subsidy or monopolies on waste processing.

Evan Taylor, Team Leader

Evan came to ASU after working in IT and construction project management in the U.S.,Africa, and the Middle East for the last 9 years. Evan’s experience includes project planningwith budgets from $10,000 to $475,000,000, as well as extensive experience in market research for waste-to-energy plants for an American-based startup in West Africa.

Evan has a history of entrepreneurship from founding his own IT company in 2002, to workingfor a number startups and small companies in Boston, to eventually moving to Arizona toco-found NimbleIT, a green-focused IT consulting company, and being a finalist in the EricCrown entrepreneurial scholar program.Evan is a School of Sustainability undergraduate student who helped launch the Sustainability Review graduate journal, and works as an undergraduate researcher for the Center for Nanotechnologyin Society, at the Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes focusing on urbansustainability challenges and nanotechnology applications.

In addition to these activities, Evan also works as a project planner and financial analyst for a Arizona & California based commercial real-estate development company that specializes in brown-field redevelopment and urban-infill projects.  

The problems reNature intends to solve by turning garbage and landfill into commerciallyviable products are particularly suited to Evan’s experience. His work at the local level witha major commercial developer proved him adept at anticipating and overcoming snags andobstacles and introduced him to key players in the public and private development sector.

Will Heasley,

Will has over 15 years of experience in the construction and manufacturing field, includingmanaging skilled and unskilled labor, disposal of hazardous materials and waste, and a focuson good working relationships with clients, coworkers, and employees. He is currently enrolledat ASU studying Sustainability with a minor in Urban Planning.

Will has been researching composting technologies from an ASU waste perspective and coordinatedwith multiple stakeholders at ASU to submit an organic waste disposal plan in 2010,and works as a surveyor for the School of Sustainability on urban sustainability projects.

David Metoyer,

David originally came to the W.P. Carey school of business at ASU to study Finance butrather than graduating in 2009, he opted to double major in Sustainability and focus onmaking the business and entrepreneurship end of sustainable enterprises become a reality.

David’s focus on sustainable business includes a Knowledge Entrepreneurship and Innovationcertificate from ASU, as well as being an Innovation Challenge winner two times running, andextensive involvement with the Global Resolve produced Twig Light.David is a Crown entrepreneurial scholar, has won startup funding for other ASU startupinitiatives, and has extensive investor contacts from both his experiences with the Twig Lightand his professional life.

David has worked extensively with Evan Taylor for his regionalknowledge and contacts in Ghana to put together viable financial plans for bottom of the pyramid social ventures.

Brian Boyle,

Brian graduated from Arizona State University in December 2007 with a BS in Bioengineering (emphasis in molecular and cellular engineering). Brian’s senior capstone design projectconsisted of developing a sol-gel film to increase photodetector sensitivity, with applicationsranging from improving accuracy of bioassays to improving efficiency for solar panels.

During his time at ASU Brian also worked in a lab to investigate methods for improving the radiopacityof graft tissue for medical implants.

Brian currently works as a research and development engineer for a major medical devicemanufacturer. Brian’s role includes prototyping, designing, and evaluating new medical devicesfor FDA submission.

Brian is responsible for developing test plans, protocols, and reports tosupport regulatory filings. He has experience with: design of experiments (DOE), designfor manufacturing, process optimization, materials characterization, failure modes and effectanalysis (FMEA), supplier selection, quality control, and quality systems. Brian has workedon projects with budgets of up to $3,000,000 and time lines as short as 4 months.

Dustin Short,

Dustin, a National Hispanic Merit Scholar, with experience in conservation & environmentalmanagement, attended MIT as a mechanical engineering and is currently pursuing a mathematicsdegree at ASU with a focus on mathematical biology and applied math.Dustin founded the Robotics Engineering club at the Peggy Payne Academy in Tempe whichfocused on math and science competitions, including ASU’s TEAMS competition.

Drawingon this experience he tutored local high school students in advanced courses before starting Nimble IT, a local IT Consulting firm. This firm focuses on green IT practices and cloudmigration to reduce both cost and impact of doing business in the information era.

Andrea Short,

Andrea, a National Hispanic Merit Scholar, Hispanic Business Alumni Scholar, and BarretHonors College student at ASU pursuing a double major in Accounting and Global Politicswith an International Business Certificate.

She serves as the CFO for Kappa Alpha Thetasorority, and works for ASU’s Office of Research reconciling research grant accounts, preparingcost transfers, and handling international accounts as well as creating business processes andworkflows and training new staff members in their use. Andrea’s honors thesis is focusing onnaturally derived business

Catherine Hoke, Intern

Catherine has achieved Junior standing at ASU while studying Mechanical Engineering inher first year. She also is an intern at the Center for Nanotechnology in Society under theConsortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes at ASU. Catherine wishes to eventually pursuea Ph. D. in Mathematics and work in automotive industry engineering with her MechanicalEngineering background.

reNature creates scalable bio-reactor systems that process organic waste into nutrient rich effluent that is then concentrated into stable natural soil amendments.

reNature gets value both from tipping fees for waste like landfill and composting sites, but also on the output of the waste into natural concentrated fertilizers.

By creating highly efficient municipal organic waste facilities within each municipality reNature serves, or nearby food processing centers, reNature drastically reduces the logistical cost of waste disposal, and offers competitive tipping fees within the local market.

This distributed model for waste disposal reduces the distance waste needs to travel on vehicles that get between 2 and 3 miles per gallon, and processes waste into concentrated products less than 1/100th the volume, drastically reducing the carbon footprint of waste.

By being cost effective at small-medium scales unlike other waste processing facilities, reNature can ignite the green jobs revolution.

reNature focuses on maximum efficiency of waste disposal, rather than trying to bend nature to inefficiently produce methane or land and labor intensive solid compost. reNature’s technology offers a cost effective means of creating a world in which the best of both is not merely possible but also practical. Utilizing hydrolysis and liquefaction, reNature can build significantly smaller bioreactors that effectively turn organic waste into nutrient rich water in a matter of hours rather than weeks or months in competing solutions. This drastically reduces capital investment costs, financing debt, and operations & maintenance, by working with nature, rather than against it. Nature rules and by obtaining value from the waste input and concentrated fertilizer output, reNature creates a truly sustainable model for a Green business, allowing it to operate in markets where other waste disposal technologies cannot.

reNature’s facilities will be net negative for both energy and water consumption, allowing for aquifer replenishment and minimal operating costs.  These benchmarks are not the result of an expensive renewable energy infrastructure, but rather through the maximization of the efficiency of natural processes, and the innate nature of the company's process to extract vast amounts of water from organic waste.

The issues of climate change and global warming are very much at the forefront of all ecological concerns but there are economic issues involved in these subjects as well. Nicholas Stern, a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, head of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and a former chief economist of the World Bank, has stated: “…the costs of climate change, if not addressed, will be equivalent to losing 5 percent (and potentially as much as 20 percent) of the global gross domestic product each year, now and forever. Climate change is the greatest market failure the world has ever seen.” reNature can demonstrate both economic and environmental advantages. Our economic and environmental strategies can work for even smaller scale municipal sites (over 50 – 100 tons per day), by allowing for distributed facilities that will reduce fuel consumption of 2-3 mpg garbage trucks which typically must fill up and drive to landfill sites 20-40+ miles away. Additionally, we can reduce the problems of organic waste management for traditional land fill sites (expensive methane/leachate production) and out perform archaic and dirty incineration and waste-energy plants.

In summary, reNature’ plan will yield a plethora of benefits to agriculture specifically and to society as a whole, both ecologically and economically. It is easy for humanity to forget that planet Earth existed for millennia prior to its inhabitance of it and in that time managed to evolve, replenish itself and thrive. It is reNature’s intent to create a business model designed around what the planet already does best. reNature’s tag line is not merely a slogan; it is a foundation to be built upon. Sustainability truly is in our nature.