A Conversation with Rubicon’s Nate Morris

Concordia CEO Matthew Swift sat down with Rubicon CEO, Nate Morris to find out how technology can be used to maximise efficiency, and provide innovative solutions for disposing of waste in a sustainable manner.  Rubicon is a company based in Atlanta, Georgia and has quickly become an industry pioneer in the sustainable waste management sector. Concordia is pleased to welcome Rubicon as its Principal Sponsor & Sustainability Partner for the 2020 Annual Summit.

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• In what ways is technology essential to waste management and sustainability solutions?

In dealing with waste, we’ve utilized a business model that is thousands of years old.  Historically speaking, the industry has gathered trash and put it directly into landfills..  We have to have a better model.  It is a space where American innovation can be brought to bear, and technology is key.  Technology helps people make data-driven decisions when it comes to waste management. It is also a cost-saving tool, which helps our customers maximize their economic efficiency when it comes to waste. Our newest solution, RUBICONSmartCity, is working to help municipal governments gather more waste data than ever before, and improving overall quality of life in those areas. Technology is crucial to bringing change and opportunity to an industry that has been stagnant for so long, and Rubicon is ensuring a sustainable future where waste is managed properly.

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• How do you see cross-sector partnerships as important to Rubicon’s mission?

Cross-sector partnerships help us reach as many locations and businesses as possible. These partnerships enable us to maximize our outreach, as well as our economic efficiency. Proper waste management requires coordination with local governments, but also with private sector companies in every city. Cross-sector collaboration also helps Rubicon ensure the proper separation of waste, because private and public sector organizations working together can increase awareness of sustainable waste disposal for individual people. These partnerships mean a greater ability to spread our message to these individual people, which helps encourage them to handle their waste sustainably and responsibly.

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• What are the main goals of the collaboration between Rubicon and Concordia?

Concordia is an incredible convening platform, and I believe that they will be a valuable partner in helping us get our message out to the right people. We aim to use Concordia’s unique partnership building and congregation skills to help position Rubicon in front of a global audience. The 2020 Concordia Annual Summit will be a great opportunity to highlight Rubicon’s mission to public and private sector organizations around the globe. We also believe that through our partnership with Concordia, we can work to ensure that Rubicon can become a service in every town across America.

• What excites you most about the 10th Concordia Annual Summit? Can you walk us through the themes and issue areas that Rubicon will be addressing at the Summit?

What excites me most is the conversations and collaborations that will occur at the Summit. The Concordia Summit is an excellent opportunity for the private and public sectors to form partnerships that could not occur anywhere else. The main theme that Rubicon will be addressing at the Summit is the Environment and Sustainability programming block. We aim to share our message of ending waste, and highlighting for attendees how we are able to maximize economic efficiency for customers, while providing sustainable and responsible solutions to ending waste in all its forms.

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• What role do Rubicon’s social impact policies play in the company’s bottom line?

While economic efficiency matters to us, nothing is more important than our core environmental objective of ending waste. An example of this is that a portion of the annual bonuses of our employees is anchored to the amount of waste reduced across all of our clients. For some of our clients, Rubicon’s contract compensation is dependent on how much we help them divert waste away from their landfills. These policies help us to focus on what is important to us, and avoid becoming motivated purely by profit. Economic efficiency and profit matter, but they only matter if we are achieving what we set out to do.